Wherefore, Heroism?
by racfwrites
Summary: For the Uncatchable highwayman, death would've come as a release. Sadly, he is denied even that, as an enigmatic nobleman launders him for his own quest. Taking up the name 'Dismas', our highwayman joins the vanguard of an unlikely army in a venture to win an impossible war against an unstoppable foe, all whilst forcing down the unquiet ghosts of their collective past.
1. Chapter 1: Dismas' Past

The Uncatchable. That's what they called him. The women of high society quivered at the thought of him. A menace that plagued the forest roads that connected the cities of the holy roman empire. Lawmen scoured the countryside fervently for him, coachmen and their escorts crossed themselves in fear of him, whilst drunkards and gentlemen alike quietly wondered what it was to _be_ him.

God, how delicious it was! To leave angry, entitled old men wheezing with rage and young ladies of gentle birth fearful, awestruck, sometimes both as they were parted from their money with a one-liner and a loaded gun. He found himself smirking beneath the red scarf that obscured his mouth.

He bent low, his hand slipping through the looping root of the yew tree, retrieving the second pistol, careful to keep the barrel level. He could hear the carriage's wheels rolling along the road, close now. He stalked towards the crest that overlooked the bend in the dirt road, raising the stashed flintlock, praying to whatever god of ne'er-do-wells existed that the powder was dry. His keen eyes found the carriage quickly enough. It rattled around a copse of trees, dutifully following the road. Neither driver nor the two guards had noticed him.  
He didn't feel especial regret for what he was about to do. The guards were forewarned and forearmed, and knew what they had signed up for.  
It took less than a second for him to point and shoot before he slid down the bank of the rise. The driver's hat spun into the air, stained with blood.  
The uncatchable highwayman didn't bother to assess the damage, dropping the expended flintlock and pulling the next from his belt as he strode through the dying forest. The second guard held his nerve, aiming his weapon from the roof even as the carriage bounced off-road.  
Another bang, and the guard fell from the carriage's roof, the musket slipping from his hands and skittering into the mud as his comrade's boots splashed into the damp earth.  
The highwayman holstered his pistol, his other hand viciously yanking his blade from its sheath as he bounded forward, fearing a musket ball blowing through him – but no, the guard had reached for a dirk, a panicked expression in his eyes.  
A clumsy thrust from his adversary, and the highwayman had the coachman by the neck. The blade swept in with a sound of tearing flesh, before it sailed away with a trail of blood and a gurgled gasp in the unfortunate's throat.

The uncatchable let a sigh escape him as he redrew his pistol, loading it with all haste.  
It was a long, painful twenty seconds, but he had been just quick enough. He heard a creak from the coach. Instincts did the rest. He moved faster than thought, firing the handgun at the sound.  
And then nothing. Only the horses whinnied in terror as he stood as still as stone, adrenaline thundering through him.  
Something was off. At this point, the occupants would be screaming.  
 _That… hadn't been a coachman._  
The uncatchable thief, sword at the ready, hesitantly approached the shattered window of the coach, and-  
 _No.  
_ The mother sat with the babe slumped in her arms, the both of them languid and still. The musketball had-  
 _Christ, no, this wasn't-  
_ deformed the child's head, looking as though it had been split down from the crown. It had gone on to  
 _I never meant for this to happen, I didn't know-  
_ burrow a hole of red ruin into the mother's chest.

He rode into Nuremburg in a daze, his fingers lightly wrapped in the reins, his mouth a small 'o' beneath his red scarf. He did not glance upon the quiet river as the hooves clopped on the bridge's cobbles, nor did he pay any heed to the way the common folk pointed at him, or the murmur that rose up from the gathering faces. He slid from the saddle, wandering through the parting crowd to the tavern.  
He had barely touched his first flagon when the town watch came for him.

He awoke to the sound of a priest's laughter.  
The uncatchable, _he_ would be out of this place by now. He would be waiting for his moment.  
Tears stung his eyes, a weary smile breaking upon the highwayman's face as the morning sunlight poured into his cell. "Bollocks." he murmured. He was clad in a woollen scrap of clothing that failed to protect his decency or provide any warmth, the coarse material itching at his collar. It didn't bother him. The cackling however, did. It grew, closer and closer, until a jailor stepped into view from the stone columns, his expression hounded.  
A few seconds later, the source of the guard's discomfort staggered into view – an old, hunched man in black with a clerical collar, with a tangled and bushy beard, with… mad, wild eyes, partially obscured by cracked, round glasses that perched on his aquiline nose.

"Open the door! We must have last rites!" The priest crowed as he slammed his head against the bars.

The highwayman slipped off of the slab of rock and stepped back from the door.

"Now! Now! _Now now now now now!"_ The priest demanded in a wild shrieking voice, clanging against the bars with his face and his fists.

The jailor could not turn the keys fast enough.  
The priest transformed. That bizarre, wild anger dissipated like morning mist, and he swept in to seize the highwayman's hands as though he were a beloved relative.

"It is truly you?! The Uncatchable? Do you hang this morning?! You do, don't you?!" The mad priest asked, feverish, a bead of drool sliding off one of the yellowed pegs in his mouth.

"I-I do, I hang today." The highwayman admitted, wincing at the smell of the priest's breath.

The priest looked on at him, his expression seemingly awestruck.  
Before it turned into a yellowed, gap-toothed smile. "You hang today." The priest said firmly, elated.

"Bring his last meal, guardsman!" The priest snapped.

The jailor shifted his weight, his expression nonplussed.

" _Now now now now now!_ " The priest bellowed as he rounded on the guard, his face a rictus of anger.

The guard nodded and ran. The priest threw an encouraging chuckle over his sloped shoulder at the highwayman before he sat himself down, plucking a battered leather-bound book from his pocket, and began to read.  
An awkward silence fell between the two occupants.

"…Is this the bit where the penitent criminal confesses his crimes?" The highwayman asked, wary.

"Oh, I don't think you have enough time to hear it all." The priest made a sound between a sob and a snigger.

"…I'm about to die, so perhaps I should unburden myse-" The highwayman fell silent as the gnarled priest started shaking his head so vigorously he looked as though he were suffering a fit.

"No, you'll wish you had, but no, no, no dying today, my poor boy. Oh, my poor boy." The priest scowled.

Soon enough, the guard had appeared with a bowl of gruel. The priest leapt to greet him, his book tumbling to the floor of the cell. The priest took the meal before urging the guard to leave. The highwayman heard a crack of something small and hollow. He heard the priest spit, much to his own distaste, before he heard the slimy, wooden sound of gruel being pushed around a bowl.

"Eat your food, or you die for real." The priest was suddenly in his face, his foetid breath making the highwayman recoil. "Do it, or I'll come to hell and ask for you by name! We're on first name terms, he and I!" The priest veered violently between a stern threat and sweet reminiscence.

"Who, Satan?" The highwayman asked, reluctantly taking the bowl. There was a blueish tinge to the meal now.

"Oh, he has half a hundred names, but I don't recognise that one." The priest murmured with wonder, before he clapped the highwayman on the shoulder and swept back out of the cell, his malevolent chuckle growing fainter and fainter.

It was only until the priest left that the highwayman noticed that he had left his book on the flagstones of the cell.  
He picked it up, flicking from page to page, his brow furrowing. _A bible, surely?_ The passages were heavily annotated, underscored and defaced with crude sketches and drawings. He noted one particular dog-eared passage, opening the book up to that. It spoke of Jesus upon the Cross, and his final moments.  
He read as much as he could before it was his time to go.

He was marched to the gibbet to the howl of the mob, vegetables and rocks pelting him. He could no longer feel the rough hemp around his neck, or the wind on his face. _This is how it feels to be a dead man._

"Any last words?" Came the question.

The crowd slowly grew quietly as the highwayman raised his hangdog expression, his lips quivering as he regarded the stern and hateful faces of the judge, the lawmen, the townsfolk and the tourists, every man and woman hanging on the final words of The Uncatchable.  
So he laughed.

"You think this is it?! By all means," He slurred, "hang me high, Nuremburg, but I'll be back! I will haunt your roads, take your baubles, taste your wives and daughters and by _god_ I'll make widows of 'em too!" He roared in defiance, the hangman tensing at the nod of a figure in the crowd, "Congratulations, you whoresons, this is the first and last time you apprehended the-"  
The trap door fell open, and the rope snapped taut.

He awoke to the smell of ammonia, the scent stinging his nose. He tried to pull away, to recoil, but he could not. His body refused to.  
He tried to shout, but only a moan broke out – but that soon died down when he took interest in the gabbling girl in the nurse's outfit hovering around him.  
"I'm sorry that hurt you – hello, I am a doctor, you've been dosed with a paralytic agent to prevent you from wrenching your spine and shoulder, I assure you, you're quite safe!" The girl blurted out. He couldn't feel her hands on his shoulders. The highwayman stared up at her, slack-jawed, his eyes wide and his scowl firm.

"Wuh tha huhl awe weh?" He asked, his eyes flitting down as his mouth betrayed him.

"'Where are we?' That is what you ask?" Asked that delightful, French accent.

"Yeth." He murmured.

"Our employer's home. That's-assuming you'd take him up on his proposal, that is!" She said haltingly.

The highwayman's mouth closed, loathe to embarrass himself in front of the pretty young nurse.  
She seemed to understand, and instead worked to ensure he was comfortable. When he finally had control of his limbs, she left him fresh clothes before going to inform the master of the house.  
She returned a few minutes later, to inform the highwayman that a seat was prepared at his table.

The highwayman was almost timid, his hand carefully rubbing at the raw rope burns on his neck as he approached the end of the table, his black eyes cast towards the man who sat at the head of it. The master of the house gazed back at him, a hard-jawed man in his late thirties, his hair beginning to grey, his beard trimmed and hair cut short. The highwayman's eye flitted to the clothing he wore, appreciating the lace, the silver buttons, the gold watch, the maroon-dyed coat. Behind the master of the house, a whimpering old man was trying to get a flame going in the ornate fireplace; he realised he recognised the old man, though he now wore a studded and tattered coat.

"Priest?" The highwayman murmured.  
The old man turned with poker and log in hand, freezing as he saw the highwayman.  
And smiled.  
"You're the uncatchable brigand that has been robbing coaches from Rheims to Prague." The master of the house said quietly.

"Yes." The highwayman nodded, his gaze sliding back to the noble in his chair.

"Would be tremendously inconvenient for me if I'd gone to such pains to help the wrong man slip the noose." The master added, smiling with his mouth and nothing more. "Call me mister Fenton."

The highwayman picked up the chair at the end of the table, repositioning it so he had a view to the doors behind him as well as this entitled unknown. He had his hands beneath the table, settled on his knees, his back hunched.

"How am I not dead, lord Fenton?" The highwayman asked, playing upon the nobility's need to talk about how bloody great they were.

"A bribe to the hangman and the coroner, a rare paralytic provided by Ms. Sabine, and delivered by mister Emory in your cell," Fenton explained with a dismissive wave of his hand, "Though a better question you should be asking is, 'why are you still alive?'."

That did catch the highwayman off-guard. "Maybe you fancy making a trophy of me?"

The nobleman shook his head, his eyes never leaving the highwayman. "I have need of you."

The highwayman half-shrugged. "You need a coach robbed?"

"I need them protected," Fenton spoke slowly, "as well as someone who can protect themselves, and doesn't mind a little skulduggery."

The highwayman frowned at that. "Security detail for a stagecoach business? How far the Uncatchable has fallen." He sighed, his knuckles rolling against his ear.

"We're in the business of putting right the wrongs, my dear highwayman. My ancestor's house has been in ruin for some time now, but the corruption there," Fenton continued over Emory's chuckling, "No one can travel to or from the hamlet. Villagers disappear into the woods, sometimes returning as brigandry and other unsavoury predators."

"COME UNTO THE FLOCK!" Emory warbled, recoiling as Fenton rounded on him with a fearsome glare.

For the mad old man's sake, the highwayman elected to speak up. "So besides 'righting wrongs', the pay is… substantial, I take it?"

Fenton raised a brow, his next words a hammer blow. "Do you honestly give a damn, at this stage?"

The silence yawned open, broken only by the clunking logs that the caretaker mishandled. The highwayman's eyes widened, feeling despair and fear rest over his heart. _He can't know. He can't know it plagues me so._  
The master's eyes gave nothing away. "We are more than certain that the site of our… excavations, will be fraught with gems, baubles and riches, a generous percentage of which will be set aside to pay you and others like you. Food, board, all of it will be paid for from my purse."

The highwayman looked on, tilting his head as he mulled over his next question. "If I were to say 'no'…"

"Then you'd have an especially hard time getting out of Nuremburg alive," Fenton shrugged his shoulders, "Though, if we fail, you'll live for several months, I'm sure – until whatever it is that consumes us comes hunting for you."

The highwayman scoffed. "I don't recall wronging 'em."

"Not 'them', 'it'," Fenton corrected, "What we fight cannot be reasoned with, cannot perceive threats from bystanders. It cannot be bought, or delayed, or cowed into submission. If it is allowed to grow, it will envelop the world we live in."

The highwayman leant back in his chair, realising only now that Fenton was on his feet. It seemed he had only just realised this himself, the radiance of determination replaced with slumped shoulders and a resigned sigh.

"Humour me. Tonight, I intend to ride to the hamlet and establish a base of operations. Come with me, and see for yourself the righteousness of our cause." Fenton proposed.

The highwayman sucked on his own bottom lip as he considered it. "Who will we be travelling with?"

"Miss Sabine will join us on the following day," Fenton replied quietly, "We will travel with mister Emory, and a soldier of the Order."

"Of the Flame?" The highwayman asked, feeling a shiver of apprehension.

"I'd have your name," Fenton asked by way of distraction, "If we're to be travelling companions."

"…Dismas." The highwayman decided.

"Your actual name?" Fenton insisted.

"Do you honestly give a damn?" Dismas fired back, the hint of a smile playing on his lips.  
Fenton did not seem to share his amusement. "Before you go," He asked, relenting the name, "I'd like to know why you spoke the way you did, 'Dismas'."

The chair legs scraped on the flagstones of the hall as Dismas made to leave. "I _am_ sorry for some I did," Dismas weighed his words with care, his eyes contrite as he regarded the master, "but I don't think that's what they wanted to hear."  
Fenton's eyes shone, and Dismas could taste his desire to ask more questions.  
Instead, the older man grunted, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.


	2. Chapter 2: Arrival

" _I was a highwayman_ …"  
The half-hearted murmurings on Dismas' lips grew quieter as the vistas grew colder, barren. The verdant heartland of Germany was replaced by yellowed, dying stalks and walls of husking, dried up trees.  
The company in the carriage was not much warmer. Fenton leafed over accounts whilst the crusader merely sat there, his gaze unseen for the visored helmet he wore. Dismas hadn't yet seen him take it off.  
 _Can't trust a man who can't look you in the eye._  
Dismas' eyes turned from the knight to observe the unfriendly thicket, but his eyes would often flit back to the knight.

"What is it?" The knight finally spoke. Caught off-guard, Dismas' eyebrows lofted as he smiled.

"The crusader speaks! There was me thinking you were just part of the scenery."

"I refuse to speak to a murdering, guttershite _thief_ like you." The knight spat, which in turn got a dark chuckle out of Fenton. Dismas furrowed his brow, rebuffed, his gaze switching to the nobleman.

"Sir Reynauld, shall I illuminate your comrade as to why _you're_ here?

Or will you be able to keep a civil tongue?" Fenton asked, his face turning to regard the crusader – but not before finding a moment to wink Dismas' way. It was a small gesture, but Dismas felt immensely grateful for it.

Reynauld said nothing, but there was an audible clink of chainmail and a creak of leather as his hands balled into armoured fists. Dismas was curious about the crusader's past, however, his mouth opening to pull that thread before he heard a crack, and the world jumped into a rolling, jarring blackness as the wagon left the road.

* * *

Dismas dreamt of Sabine as he lay there. That wonderful girl with the pretty face and that pain-relieving nectar. The way she'd fussed and cared for him, swinging between silly little questions about his life and thought-out inquiries about his health.  
Then she started to retreat from him. A blossom of red appeared on her chest. He was outside looking in, through the jagged portal at her, the child's head burst open like a flower-  
He awoke with a cry, finding the visor of Reynauld staring down at him, his stern and cold armour surrounded by the dead woods and obscuring a blood red sky. Dismas leant back, and then wished he hadn't as the rope burns around his neck flared.

"Lord Fenton suggests we're in danger. Up." Reynauld stated, offering Dismas his gauntlet.  
Dismas took it, and with the knight's help, rose to his feet. Reynauld turned and strode after their master, drawing the largest sword Dismas had ever seen in his life.  
"Overcompensating?" Dismas suggested.

"Fuck off. Get ready." Reynauld snarled.

Despite the ever-closing danger, Dismas felt a spike of anger. "I'm ready."

"Draw your weapons." Reynauld said.

"They'll answer, when called for." Dismas replied airily as they fell in line with Fenton.

"You think I'm going to be impressed, _Uncatchable_?" Reynauld asked, going very still as they heard a twig snap, out there, in the woods.

Old blades of grass and foliage whispered as it was moved through as delicately as possible, before going silent. There was no rustle of cloth, no clink of chainmail, no errant sound from Fenton's group. They did not know so much as _sense_ that they were in full view of their assailants. A pregnant, near inviolable stillness settled around them. The hunters and the hunted knew the steps to this dance, but it seemed all hesitated in that moment, almost nervous to trigger the unknowable degrees of violence that both parties could visit upon the other, wanting to prolong this terrible limbo. _The sides may just be even,_ Dismas decided, _If they had the numbers, they'd throw themselves upon us._

As if to confirm his musings, their stalker spoke up. "Put down your weapons," a voice called through the dark trees, "It'll make what happens next quicker."

"We have money." Fenton replied.

"Don't care." The voice returned, eliciting a cruel chuckle, off to Dismas' left. Dismas felt something wake up in his breast as he heard their opponent's response. Dismas had robbed and killed for money, to make a living, only killing when it was prudent to. But it seemed like these men killed to satisfy on a darker, fundamental level. A ghost of a smile played on his lips as he recognised the hypocrisy of his feelings.  
He felt contempt for them.

"So come, if you're coming." Fenton grated.

To Dismas, the sound was unmistakable. It was the layered, metallic click of a flint-lock weapon, behind the tree on the left. There was no time to think. His weapons leapt into his hands. His pistol's muzzle rose, pointed naturally at a brigand that had swung out of cover, in the process of levelling a monstrous blunderbuss at the three of them.

Gunpowder boomed, steel ripped at flesh, and the dying forest would take what nourishment it could from the dead.

* * *

The sun never graced the hamlet with its presence. Not really. Sometimes, there would be good days, like this one, where the rays of sunlight would filter in through the rheumy film that seemed to surround this place, but it didn't brighten anyone's day. It didn't inspire any smiles on the faces of the townsfolk. They could not grow crops in this filthy light, and it provided no warning for the town when it's predators were on the prowl. All it seemed to do was remind Antoine, and all the other villagers, that the world was still going on without them.

 _Like a dead man's gaze, we see without seeing._

Today, the sun's presence and absence didn't bother Antoine's gaunt features. He never stopped looking down from the abbey's ruined tower into the dead forest, not even when he heard the hard echo of boots on stone behind him. He could tell it was the corpulent priest by the lumbering footfalls, the space between them giving his mind's eye a trundling gait.

"He won't come." Nael said between laboured breaths.

Antoine slowly closed his tired eyes as he heard Deacon Nael's forecast.

"The letter was specific. We must prepare to give benediction."

Antoine could feel his soul chipping away as Nael chuckled at that. "You really suppose Fenton the Younger is coming? For this scrap of land? Or do you fear he won't fall far from the tree?" Nael asked. Antoine could visualise the hungry smile of the priest. Nael had quietly boasted to him about how he had served the Elder so diligently, bringing to him fresh meat after his masses, and how he had been paid with the scraps.  
Once upon a time, it had made Antoine's flesh crawl, to know that the man who wore the robe had been in cahoots with the master of this estate, who at the start of it all, was merely interested in excessive orgies and depraved acts dark enough in scope and depth to attract the judgement of even the most lenient inquisitor.  
What happened after that 'phase'… well, those atrocities made those carnal pursuits seem so very small.

"I do not wish to invoke the wrath of our new master, should he appear." Antoine said smoothly, carefully neutral in his answer as his eyes scoured the thickets. He had confronted Nael once, after he'd heard the crying. Nael had threatened to take it to the master of the estate, promising Antoine that he would be silenced.  
 _Am I a coward, or a pragmatist?_ Antoine had often wondered, _What good am I to the flock if I am dead? Is it better to die and risk changing nothing? Or to cling to life, impotent, and do what can be done?_

"Aha, of course – our previous employer had quite the temper, didn't he?" Nael simpered, "Don't worry, my son, I'll see which way the wind blows, and I'll warn you off."

That poked the embers in the lay-priest's breast. Antoine felt his right eye twitch as he fought to control his temper. _You lecherous old bastard! I'm not your friend! I warned you, all of you, long ago, that this was wrong! That he would lead us astray! You could have done right, and not besmirched that collar you wear! You gave him people to toy with in his lust, and gave him people to destroy in his dark ambition! Now we're on the thresh-hold of hell! You hypocrite! You bastard! You bastard, you bastard, you bastard!_

He felt Nael's hand clap on his shoulder. "You alright there?" Nael's voice was inquisitive. It was all Antoine could do to not shrug off the pudgy fingers.

"I'm scared, Deacon Nael." He murmured. _Scared of what I will do to you._ He willed his shaking hand to drift up stroke to the tuft of his beard, as if wistful.

"Oh, don't be! Everything will be alright!" Antoine was pulled in closer into a stiff and awkward embrace. Nael's breath was foetid, reeking of garlic. "As long as we stick together, we'll see this through, no matter what comes through that thicket."

Antoine said nothing. _If he fell from this tower, no-one would weep._

"Did you hear me there, old friend?" Nael asked, his voice a little harder now.

Antoine still said nothing, his heart roaring at him to protest, to rail against Nael, to -fight-.

"…Would you look at that?" Nael's voice was amused, now.

Antoine's gaze slipped towards his companion at those spoken words, following his gaze over to the Old Road. Three individuals were walking into the middle of the hamlet, purposefully. A warrior in crusading garb had a long sword rested on his shoulder, an unsavoury individual had a hand on his holstered pistol, and the man in the rich clothing carried a sack in one hand, a dirk in the other.

"I suppose he arrived after all. We'll have to warn Miller and the gypsy woman. We ought to look after our neighbours, aye?" Nael chuckled, turning, descending the broken staircase of the abbey.

"What of Frida?" Antoine asked, recalling the hard-bitten, handsome survivalist in her hood and cloak.

"What _of_ her? She's stupid and stubborn enough to live on the fringe of the village, let her be the last to know. It's her lot," Nael sneered over his shoulder, "Now come downstairs. It's cold as ice-water up here."

Antoine didn't. His eyes were fixed on the noble, who had stopped tens of meters short of the ancestral statue in the centre of the courtyard. _He stands apart from its shadow._ The noble began to speak, strong and loud.

"I am Stuart Fenton, descendant of Elias Fenton-" The mere mention of Elias made Antoine wince, and for a moment he swore he could hear moaning emanate from the boarded up houses of the hamlet, "-and I have come to reclaim my estate, along with this hamlet!"

"I require strong workmen, and tools! Those who supply me with either will be remembered and rewarded. As for the rest of you? Remove the boards from the windows, open your doors. There is nothing to fear from brigandry and mundane violence." Fenton ordered as he dropped the sword, lifting the sack - and at this point, Antoine noticed, his voice took on a dolorous and practiced quality about it, as though these next spoken words were stolen, commandeered.

"The rightful owner has returned, and their kind is no, longer, _welcome._ " Fenton grated, upending the sack, sending three severed heads tumbling out of the sack and thudding on the hard earth, the faded green hoods and scarves of the Wolf's warband stained with blood. The display coaxed a gasp, a groan, even a keening shriek – but the hamlet was largely silent. Antoine was not afraid – he was utterly desensitised to violence, having seen better men die in a score of different ways. What bothered Antoine was he felt no sympathy, not even grief for the dead bandits. In place of his pity was a triumphant, scornful satisfaction. _The wolves that have savaged our flock for so long have run afoul of our new shepherd._

"We will assemble at the Abbey. Bring your shoulder to the wheel, and I will bring you security – perhaps even salvation." Fenton promised before he walked past the now still heads in the courtyard, marching with his two enforcers towards Antoine, and the remains of the abbey's tower that he stood in.  
Antoine was not afraid.  
Unbelievably, tears wetted his eyes as he looked upon the sun, as if expecting its reluctant demeanour towards this place to change, all because a rich man had brought blood and coin and ridiculous promises.

One way or another, the end was in sight.

* * *

There's chapter 2, constructive criticism is always appreciated. Much love, readers.


	3. Chapter 3: The First Expedition

"Animals."

"Pardon?" Dismas asked over the gentle drumming of water on canvas, leaning in to gain some level of shelter from the rain.

Fenton moved in the shadow of the wagon's canvas, the only lodging available. Dismas wondered if the nobleman was irked by it. "They're like animals, Dismas." Fenton's voice was quiet, measured.

"Who? The locals?" Dismas

A simple nod. "Once you've beaten the hound within an inch of its life, it never forgets."

Dismas sucked at his bottom lip as he took a clumsy stab at the metaphor. "New owner. There's hope in that."

Fenton's half-lidded eyes slowly turned on Dismas, undecided. "What news of the tunnel entrance?"

"Reynauld tells me that before the day is out, we'll be able to enter the ruins." Dismas replied. He didn't like Reynauld, but even he could admire how the Crusader had been moving stones even as he directed the toil of the workers.

"Good. You will be leading the first expedition. We need to show the locals that we mean business, and that involves proving that these rumours of undead apparitions… well, that it's poppycock," Fenton trailed off, seeing the discomfort on Dismas' face, "What?"

"I ain't no leader, boss." Dismas admitted frankly.

"You're exactly what I say you are, Dismas," Fenton replied, regretting the choice of words as he saw Dismas register the words as a reminder, as a threat, "And I say that you are a man who has made mistakes. A man who simply refuses to let them define him. You are quick, you are resourceful, and you are uncatchable, _the_ uncatchable. You know how to guard against the evil that men do."

Dismas' troubled expression softened. "You suppose man is behind this? Not a ghost?" He asked, seemingly onboard.

"I do. Do you believe in ghost stories?" Fenton asked, raising a brow.

Dismas shook his head.

"Reynauld is a soldier, and may have it in him to be a leader, but I do not trust him. What's more, this mission is simple reconnaissance. Zealotry is not what's needed. Not yet." Fenton explained.

"What will you do?" Dismas asked.

"Many things; predominantly, I will secure lodgings with the tavern master or the deacon for you all, so you have a place to rest, as well as use what little influence I have to dispatch orders to my servants in the wider world; rabble-rouse, agitate and create interest in what is happening here. Perhaps I will seek out the Caretaker and wring his damned neck. Lastly, I will do my best to evade the more vengeful townsfolk. The sins of the grandfather are not forgotten, I daresay." Fenton said airily.

Dismas shifted, unsure what to say. "Quite the list, boss. Should I, uh, get us underway now?"

"Of course. Good hunting, highwayman." Fenton replied, before he took up his ink and quill, precariously attempting to compose his propaganda near the dismal light of the storm.

Dismas had received a bill of sale and instructions on who to go to, to secure the supplies needed for this preliminary expedition, though finding his way back to the dig proved difficult – between the layout of the hamlet that he was unfamiliar with, and the sheets of rain that left him capable of seeing perhaps ten feet in front of him… he kept a hand on the pommel of his sword. Any villagers with a dislike for Fenton may decide to frustrate Dismas.

He was soaked, sodden through when he finally found the dig again. He could see Reynauld and the sister of battle staring at the entrance to the ruins, stoney and silent. _Both soldiers of the Order. If this mission needs two of 'em, well, shit, maybe we are in trouble._

Dismas trudged his way towards the man beneath the awning, surrounded by tools and furniture that had been hastily moved outside to serve as a workstation and supply locker both.  
Dismas gave pause when he saw who the man was.

"Does he know you're back?" Dismas asked as he leaned on the desk, the workmen's tools ringing through the hissing, wet tumult that the rain provided. Emory only replied with another of his manic, pleading grins as he pushed the sack of supplies across to the highwayman. The highwayman gave him a cynical loft of his brow before his fingers pried open the lip of the sack.

"This is a lot. Are we expected to carry all this for the duration?" He asked.

The caretaker drooled sympathetically as the thunder rumbled.

"More salted pork, and I'll forget to swing by Fenton's tent." Dismas suggested, to which the Caretaker answered by slamming two chunks on the desk, shrouded in checkered cloth. Dismas raised one to his nose, sniffing deeply, before his eyes crinkled with a smile.

"Cheers." He told Emory, reflexively rushing his arm to cover the bounty he'd won as a robed individual rushed the desk.

"I will need fresh leeches, and a balm that might combat necrosis?" Came the voice, delicate and flowery and horribly familiar.

"Sabine?" Dismas asked, turning to regard the person who stood next to him. She wore the long beak of a plague-doctor's mask, her form obscured by the bulky, patchwork robes of the profession. She paused as she regarded him before hurrying to partially drag the mask to the side, exposing the round face and the beaming smile, drowned strands of her light blonde hair darkened by the damp.

"Oh! Hello!" She chirped, "I need components to combat a variety of baleful afflictions, from the ochre pox to the red plague. Mister Emory, would you please oblige me?" She explained, her last appeal directed at the Caretaker.

"You're coming with us?" Dismas asked, concerned as Emory began to scrabble ferociously through his things.

"Well, yes! How else am I expected to look after you?" Sabine started, immediately ramping up her gabbling as she struggled to affix her mask, "I mean, I wouldn't be able to treat Reynauld's wounds from afar, or Prioress Junia – and then there's your neck to worry about, you'll want a trained physician with you at all times, _non_?"

"I don't think that's wise." Dismas replied, his voice thick with scepticism.

"Why not?" She asked, looking taken aback, her voice now muffled slightly by the hollow beak of her mask.

"Because you're just a doctor, this isn't your field of expertise?" Dismas, before mentally tacking on _and I would hate to see you die. You seem too good for this work._

"Well, I'm still coming along. Our employer wants a learned man – or woman – keeping an eye out for anything valuable. Written accounts, ancestral memoires, that sort of thing. Besides, you, you want me around, don't you?" She chuckled, a long second passing between them before she added, "You'll be bored stiff, elsewise. Two warriors of the Order? You'll dash your head on purpose to escape that particular hell." She joked.

It was a poor choice of words. They both looked towards the men shovelling broken stone aside, knowing that past those workmen, _something_ was allegedly waiting there. Something that had unmanned Emory, agitated the villagers, disturbed Fenton, and had seemingly warranted the arrival of two warriors of the Light, all on a rumour of bad happenings.

"Fine. Get your things, and tell me about the sister. Anything I should worry about?" Dismas asked, lingering under the awning with Sabine as the sibilant rain continued its downpour.

* * *

" _Is_ there something you should be worrying about?" Fenton countered, not even deigning to look his way.

The corpulent priest licked his bottom lip, clearly wondering if he should be plainer. "Well, I have colleagues who served the dynasty dutifully, if not piously. Your dear grandfather, his esoteric tastes and dalliances with the occult, asked things of his people that put them in a very difficult position, and with that choler about him… it was always a tricky thing, to balance our service to God, and our duty to the Fenton line."

If Fenton had known that he was going to be approached by snivelling sycophants, he wouldn't have suggested to the tavern master and the blacksmith that they celebrate their newfound arrangement with a drink, or several.

But Fenton hadn't known. Now, inebriated, he fought to keep a sneer off his face as he regarded the deacon with a look.

"Go on." Fenton said, reluctant and playful all at once. He wanted to know where and how this pitiable creature would go about asking something of him.

"Well, it should please you greatly to know that our brothers of the cloth were diligent in serving the Fentons, first and foremost, showing great moral fortitude in doing that which was…necessary… as opposed," Nael wavered, a miserably ingratiating smile on his face as Fenton's shoulders shook, "What is funny, my lord?"

"'Moral fortitude'? God in hell, just tell me what you want, deacon." Fenton sighed, tiring of this game, choking another chuckle that had bubbled in his throat when he saw the old forgemaster throw him a conspiratorial grin.

"My friends would be much obliged if their years of loyal service, and their unflinching dedication and loyalty, in the face of the very real danger that an unruly and rebellious community, and we will continue to do so, despite what the masses might think!" Nael persisted.

 _Loyal. Yes, say it again._ "That fills my heart with joy." Fenton asked, closing his eyes at his own brazenness.

The fat little priest hadn't noticed, or had chosen to ignore the sarcasm that Fenton had used. "I am glad it does – and if I can pass on your assurances to my colleagues, it'll smooth any ruffled feathers-"

Fenton allowed the priest to continue talking. That was his first mistake.

His second mistake was opening his mouth, and saying the things he did.

Nael hurried out of the tavern, waddling for the abbey as fast as he was able. He had one of his paws impotently raised to his bald head, as though seeking to ward off the rain. He shook off the rain as he entered, bellowing for the verger to bring him an inkwell, a quill, and parchment. Once supplied, he disappeared into the vestry, and in the dimming radiance of candlelight, began to write.

His days were numbered. This plot would have to be underway as quickly as possible if he was to get out of this alive.

* * *

Sabine explained that this passageway led to the gatehouse, and Dismas already hated it. Gatehouses, in his experience, were the first hurdle of thieves, warbands and fugitives of justice, fortresses and outposts that protected civilisation from such traffic. Gatehouses were normally above ground. He wasn't sure if it was by a terrible accident, erosion of terrain or malicious design, but this particular model was beneath the ground.  
Dismas slicked back his hair, still wet from the rain as the thunder boomed through the reinforced tunnels the workmen had erected. Sabine was walking right behind him, her beaked helm pointed downwards at the map she surveyed. Junia, in her earth-brown, reinforced robe, held the torch aloft, ensuring that the plague doctor had a steady stream of light. Reynauld brought up the rear, a mailed fist closed around the handle of his scabbarded sword.

They left the earthworks of the tunnel and stepped out onto the cold flagstones of the gatehouse's hall, the walls looming over them as they made furtive progress through the corridor. Dismas' eyes caught a glint of something, bringing a hand up to call a halt. He should have been more observant. Shields bearing heraldic devices bedecked the halls and suits of plate armour stood their ground beneath each one.  
 _The servants of the Fenton line?_ "Junia?" He asked, his hand seeking the torch. It was provided, and he read the names. _Gauen, Hector, Leofric the Just, Angelo…  
_  
"Do any of these names ring a bell?" Dismas recounted them, but the two women shook their heads, before turning to regard the sound of glass shattering.

The three of them followed the sound to find Reynauld casually removing baubles from the display case he had smashed, replacing them in his coin purse – and not the reinforced sacks that Fenton had provided them with.

"You're stealing from our boss, you realise?" Dismas said.

"Aye? Help yourself." Reynauld replied, taking a step away from the case to reveal the jewels that shone there. Some of them were as large as Dismas' thumb, and shone like blood. For a long few seconds, he contemplated taking some for himself. With just a handful…  
"Those are going in the bag. He's going to pay us for our services. You must know how this works." Dismas stated, causing the crusader to tilt his head slightly, lifting his chin.

"A percentage won't work for me. Now look to that mouth, brigand – it's talking you into trouble." Reynauld warned.

Dismas grimaced beneath his scarf, suddenly feeling a mounting pressure to perform. He didn't know if it was his initial dislike of Reynauld, Fenton's trust in him, the boyish need to look strong in front of Sabine or his fear of retribution.

"Give me the rubies, Reynauld – or I'll tell him." Dismas opened his palm and held it out.

Reynauld shifted his weight, sauntering close to Dismas. The knight was taller, garbed head to toe in armour that was painted gold by Junia's torchlight. Dismas knew he wouldn't be able to overpower the knight, if it came to that.  
Dismas felt the weight of the stones in his hand.

"I have faced a hundred warriors – all of them better than you, and all of them dead," Reynauld rumbled, leaning in a fraction, "Remember that the next time you deign to extort me."

Out of discretion, Dismas allowed Reynauld the last word, switching focus to the sister and the doctor. Their expressions were inscrutable beneath their respective hoods. "We'll carry the rest of this on the return," Dismas gestured at the walls, the shields and the expensive suits of armour that guarded them, "For now, let's get this place scouted out. Perhaps we'll get beyond this to the- the, umm."

"Vestibule?" Sabine asked softly.

"That's the one. Let's get a move on." Dismas said.

As they continued on through the darkened tunnel, Dismas found a much more compelling reason to detest this place, this gatehouse, when a wooden stake punched through Junia's leg.

The scream was horrific. Immediately, Sabine started bleating, out of panic trying to help Junia off of the stake as Dismas turned, demanding everyone to be silent, to be still.  
Reynauld's voice cut through the tumult, his voice raw and urgent. "Shut the fuck up! Stop moving her! Shut the fuck up! Do not move!" Reynauld roared at Junia and Sabine. Junia's howl was smothered into a weeping moan as she bit down on the pain. Sabine was still as a ghost as Reynauld then threw an encouraging glance to Dismas, one that Dismas hoped he understood it for what it was. _This is no battlefield,_ the glance told him, _nor a holy matter. We're in a trap. Get us out of here._  
"Sabine, don't move an inch." Dismas murmured, forcing himself to look outwards. He wanted to assess the damage, to help Junia, but he was the brigand. He knew how predatory scum thought, and he knew that if they'd heard Junia's scream... He would have to trust Sabine. He would have to.

"I-I need to see what's happened, I need to see if there's an artery severed, I need to-" Dismas turned to see if he needed to help. To her credit, even with one leg perforated, Junia shakily lowered the torch in her hand. In her other hand was something she'd picked up, the curious thing that had brought Junia close enough to the trap that had swallowed up and speared her leg.  
It was a human child's skull.  
 _God in hell._

"Will she live?" Dismas asked, his eyes searching the blackness, his heartbeat skipping as he thought he saw shapes in the dark. _This wretched place_. _This accursed place. This wasn't designed to protect the people,_ Dismas thought darkly, _it was built to protect the manor -from- its people._

"It's bad. She's made a mess of her dress," Junia's diagnosis elicited a strained chuckle out of the prioress, "But she'll live. I just need her off of this spike, and I can make to bandage." Sabine explained.

"Reynauld, can you help her? Quickly?" Dismas called.

Reynauld gingerly walked closer, his sabatons edging over the flagstones, testing for any further traps. "Okay, Junia, darling, we're going to lift you. It's going to be short and sharp, do you understand? Nod for me if you understand?" Sabine asked, her attention split between Reynauld and the laboured breathing of Junia, raising a finger to Reynauld. "Okay, I'm going to count to five, and then we're going to lift you, alright? Okay, okay… One-"

The two hefted abruptly, and Junia's next scream carried down the hallways.

* * *

A scream of pain echoed down the hallways.  
His eyes were always open. If he could, he would blink the sleep from his eyes, or close them to begin with. It had been such a long sleep. Such unhappy dreams. Fire, and smoke. Blood, and murder. Pain, and screaming.  
Pain. With his failing body, that was one feeling that had never dulled. It was pain to move, grinding, motes of yourself falling away, denied the touching, feeling flesh. It was pain to sleep, to relive what you had done, to feel the villagers fists hitting you over and over, the cold flooding your body as the red set in. It was pain to live, though that wasn't the word for what he had, never knowing closeness, satisfaction, rest.  
Those were forfeit.  
No more flesh. No more red. No more rest.  
There was only the command. A command wrapped in witchery, invoking a jealous hate for the interlopers, a longing for what they have, a bitterness to see it robbed from them.  
 _Deny all intruders. Do not let Death stop you._  
Ser Gauen slowly stirred, trying to move, finding his movements languid, disjointed and out of practice. He contemplated forcing his limbs into action, but thought against it. He heard his fellow hedge knights awakening, convulsing and twitching as they returned to this living hell. He sounded a ghostly moan. _Be still._ Gauen knew a small comfort that the shades of his brothers obeyed. They had no need to rush.  
The intruders were coming this way.

* * *

Junia felt something bubbling beneath the surface, something dark and clawing beneath the skin as Sabine continued to dole out insipid platitudes. ' _Are you alright?', 'You've lost a lot of blood', 'lean on me, I can help you'.  
_ "Shut up." Junia murmured.

"…I didn't say anything." Sabine replied.

"…Good." Junia replied, and clung to the plague doctor just a little tighter as Dismas led them into the next hall, haltingly. As Junia brought the torch forward, she felt a chill, understanding the bandit's reluctance – the floor was strewn with bodies. Adventurers, looters driven to desperation, she reckoned. Junia grunted as Sabine left her momentarily to inspect the bodies, shuffling on ahead with Dismas. More heirlooms covered the walls – suits of antiquated armour, shields, paintings, made to leave an impression on those visiting the estate.

"These bodies are fresh," Sabine muttered, "Killed only a day ago, perhaps less."

"And?" Reynauld stated woodenly. Dismas recoiled, as though struck by some unseen force.

"Highwayman?" Junia asked, approaching him - and grimaced as the smell hit her, a tainted, wretched odour.

"Those bodies _aren't_ fresh." Dismas chided over his shoulder.  
"Excusez-moi?" Sabine replied, genial as she got up to join them.

"That's the smell of long-ago dead. You don't forget that." Dismas admonished, turning to regard the doctor as Junia lowered the torch groundward, spotting pages, torn and scattered upon the flagstones.

"…They died a day ago. You must be smelling something else." Sabine suggested, keeping her tone level.

Junia had followed the trail of pages, finding the journal at the foot of one of the statues. She winced as she bent low, pain lancing through her bad leg.  
Almost immediately, Sabine was there, helping her up as Junia picked up the maroon journal.

"What did you find?" Sabine asked. When she got no answer, she glanced Junia's way. Her face was white as a sheet, her mouth making a horrible gnawing expression, as though refusing to accept an unpalatable truth.  
With a horrendous, rusted squeak of plates grinding together, the suit of armour came to life, and raised the sword aloft.  
"I don't deserve persecution." Junia muttered numbly, dumbly, as she thrusted Sabine by the shoulder ahead of her, into the path of the downward stroke. Whatever noise Sabine made when she struck the ground was drowned out by the terrifying metallic din of three more suits seeming to animate, advancing upon the remainder of the party. Dismas cried out in anger, Reynauld cursed vehemently, and Junia began to wail as the battle began in earnest.

Dismas' pistol fizzled ineffectually as the damp powder failed to catch, his sword leaping to his call before rushing to Sabine's aid, driving the suit that had struck her away. Reynauld took on two of the suits at the same time, rolling with their blows, answering their lumbering attacks with dolorous strokes of his great sword. Junia fought with a strength lent to her by blind terror, her mace and torch parried again and again by the swordsman that assailed her. Dismas struggled as well, used to hacking down coachmen who at most wore gambesons and padded leathers. Only Reynauld seemed capable of holding his ground, but even he was being forced back.  
But they'd done enough. Sabine was clear.

"Get back!" Sabine shrieked.

Dismas and Reynauld paid heed. Junia didn't, and was almost consumed by the explosion of green vapours that landed in the enemy formation. The suit she fought had turned in reaction to the noise, and its helmet was splashed with the acidic blight. It worked quickly, the visor fizzing away.  
When it turned to regard Junia, her wailing stopped as she saw its true face.  
She turned and ran, taking the torchlight with her, even as Reynauld and Dismas withdrew, the bleeding Sabine carried between them.

* * *

Ser Gauen could barely feel the slow burn of the chemicals eating into his face. It was a distraction to the horrors in his head, and he welcomed it, as did he welcome the familiar action of combat. The clash of weaponry, the resistance of vigorous limbs, the cries of fearful men… this skirmish had been invigorating. But all too quickly, the living were retreating.  
A victory was a victory. He ordered his brothers to give pursuit, knowing they'd never catch them. But it was expected of them. Master Elias and his lieutenants would be wroth with them if they were lax in their vigilance.

* * *

Author's note: JUNIA'S RESOLVE IS TESTED...  
++SELFISH++  
Sorry for the wait, people! Was ruminating about how to cover the initial excursion, and keen to not have it cover several chapters. As always, constructive criticism is welcome. Much love, hope you enjoy.


	4. Chapter 4: Bounty Hunter's Past

I did give the story a mature rating, but I feel I should go ahead and say someone dies particularly badly in this segment in the story. Maybe I'm just biased, I've never much liked the idea of being drowned.

* * *

Captain Murdoch was drunk as he stood at the parapet of the cog, but not on alcohol. There was a sense of nervous excitement, of power regained that ran through the ship that had initially been stolen by the passengers he'd taken on this night. Two men, a woman, a child. They'd offered him coin for discreet passage to Orkney, and had chosen to threaten him when he'd found out who they were. His crew had talked of throwing them overboard, of night-time murder, but he had flattened any plans like that. They were smugglers. Not one of them were killers, or even fighters. If they moved against the heretics in his hold, they'd surely die.  
The odds had been made even when he'd found a stowaway in his cabin, lounging on the captain's chair. The stowaway had worn a varangian helmet over a veil. His body had been garbed in scale, leathers and studded armour, his belt had been bedecked in scrolls bearing doomed quarries, skeleton keys and grim tools – and a grappling hook, looped against its rope.  
Murdoch had grinned like an idiot as the Hangman, _the_ Hangman, told him that he would be doing away with his little problem. The bounty hunter had expected resistance, but Murdoch had been falling over himself to accommodate him. Murdoch had even refused to take any cut from the bounty; the satisfaction would be enough.  
He shared a conspiratorial smile with his first mate, the Orkney isles now in sight.  
"They're in position." His first mate told him.

"And him?" Murdoch asked.

"He's ready whenever, though the sooner, he says, the better."

For a while, the two of them simply enjoyed the calm before the storm, the only sound now being the gentle slosh of the water hitting the bow of the ship. Then he called out in a strong, powerful voice, "Drop anchor!"

Sawney had heard the call, rushing out of his family's cabin, up the stairs past the unfriendly faces of the crew, only stopping when he reached the deck of the ship. He heard rattling chains and heavy metal sploshing through the surface of the water, his expression one of incensed confusion.

"Why the hell have we stopped? That's Orkney, is it not?"

Murdoch turned to regard the haggard Sawney with a smile of black-hearted triumph, relishing this moment, his voice trembling not with fear, but with something darker. Tonight, now, he wasn't captain Murdoch. Today, he was a judge passing sentence. "Alexander Bean, you are found to be guilty of the murder of clergy, mass murder, cannibalism, the harassing of Girvan and Ballantrae, and the murder and desecration of my _fucking family!_ " Murdoch's voice had risen to a scream as he bellowed in Sawney's face, and launched himself at him.  
The words had cost him the element of surprise, however good they'd felt to say.  
Sawney Bean's knife flicked out, glancing Murdoch's neck as the old captain's fingers viced on Sawney's throat. Sawney tried an underarm thrust, his limb locking as the first mate took hold of him. "John! John! _Jo-"_ Sawney's cries were interrupted as the captain's fist knocked his head backwards, and more crewmen appeared to hold Sawney down. The knife was gone, confiscated.  
"I sentence you," Murdoch rasped, his eyes full of menace, "to be given over to the Hangman, the bounty hunter."  
Sawney looked on, feeling an unfamiliar emotion bubble to the surface. Fear, for himself and his family. Fear of the Hangman.  
He kept crowing for John until he was beaten unconscious.

* * *

Fiona Bean was the first to die. She had been in the hold of the ship when the ruckus had begun. The first noise she heard was the dragging of a weighted, metal hook on wooden boards.  
Fiona was dangerous, in the right circumstances. She had devoured the flesh of the victims of the Bean clan, and that forever marked her. She had no compulsions with taking a life, and had done just that countless times.  
But those lives had been bound by rope, trapped between the rocky wall of caverns and the hungry smiles of the Bean clan.  
The Hangman did not even bother to try and get the drop on her. He simply hove into view, his executioner's axe glittering in what little moonlight passed through the ship's deck-planks. Fiona's bottom lip wobbled, her face beaded with sweat as she brandished the meat cleaver she'd stolen a week ago.  
He snorted.

* * *

John Bean kissed Hamish's head, telling him to stay quiet and stay hidden before he left the cabin, sword rasping from the scabbard as he rushed towards the deck, leaping the steps three at a time-  
He blinked hard, almost slipping from the stairs as drops of rain spattered on his cheek.  
He gave pause, his eyes turning skyward. There wasn't a single cloud on this starry night.  
He could smell copper as he craned his neck, spying the tattered, battered thing hanging from the mast.  
His mouth hung open when he recognised Fiona's green jerkin.  
Her head was missing.

" _Bastards_!" He shouted, turning, his eyes searching the moonlit deck for the culprits, the captain, his treacherous crew.

He heard a hollow, whistling sound on the air.  
The cannibal warrior turned, the grappling hook missing his throat by inches.  
The Hangman stood atop the captain's deck, bringing the grappling hook back for another cast as the ship beneath them rolled over the motion of the sea. His movements were slow, deliberate, almost sloppy. He threw the hook out, and this time, John caught it on his sword, the hook and line wrapping around the blade. John savagely wrenched, his desperate, inhuman strength seemingly able to uproot the Hangman, sending him tumbling upon the deck, the hand-axe landing too far from him to be of use.  
It was over. John Bean threw himself upon the bounty hunter, his sword raised in both hands to end this fight-  
The Hangman had allowed himself to be deprived of his weapons. He had allowed himself to be pulled from the captain's roof, taking great care into making his fall seem genuine, into making his slow and careless demeanour seem real.  
In the Hangman's own guttural tongue, this was a 'komm schon'.  
He whipped the ceramic container up into John's face on a one-second fuse, and for the cannibal, the world burst into light and fire as the flashbang detonated.  
John cried out, trying to make himself heard as he blindly swung the sword down.  
The breath was driven from him as what felt like a hammer rocketed into his ribcage. And another. And another, again and again…

The Hangman was not slow. His was an economy of energy and violence.  
The Hangman was not sloppy. He was a professional.  
But by God, he was deliberate.  
Murdoch, still bleeding from the neck, and his crewmen all watched in mute fascination as the Hangman deconstructed John where he stood, his fists landing quick, efficient, _deliberate_ blows into John's body. Sawney screamed through the gag for his son to move, to get clear, to do _something_.  
By the time John could hear him, he was in no position to do anything. He was dead on his feet, his diaphragm spasming through cracked ribs. The Hangman had forced the sword from him.  
Eventually, the Hangman seemed to grow weary of the game. He planted a boot on John's chest and kicked hard, sending him to the floor.  
Like a cloak, that slow, lumbering gait affected him again as he reclaimed his axe. He walked back to John, who convulsed and moaned as he tried to crawl away.  
The axe fell.

* * *

"You are going to die." The Hangman told him as they went on into the captain's cabin.

Murdoch nodded his head, his hand pressed to the arterial wound on his neck all the same.  
"I will pay your crew." The Hangman said, seeming to state a fact rather than offer comfort.

"I want to be paid, too." Murdoch stated quietly, his voice barely a whisper.

The Hangman looked on at him, tilting his head, seeing the hungry look in Murdoch's eyes. For a moment, Murdoch thought he'd earned a sliver of respect from the Hangman. "Name your price." The cowled mercenary said, his voice soft and accented by that Germanic tongue.

Murdoch's hand clutched the Hangman's axe as they left the cabin, approaching the crew who were menacing Sawney.

"Put him on his belly." Murdoch ordered, his voice firm and full of bitterness.

Sawney was laid down, his voice a muffled moan of despair as Murdoch held the axe as the Hangman had instructed – the shoulder and butt presented towards the target.

"His arm." He ordered, taking the axe in both hands, the dressing on his neck a deep red.

Sawney's left arm was held tightly to the deck.  
The axe came down, and with a snap like rotting timber, he broke Sawney's elbow.  
Sawney went mute, the pain conquering him.

"The other." Murdoch demanded.

The crewmen took little satisfaction in this task. They loved their captain, and knew how important they were to him, and how cruelly his old family had been taken – and they knew he would be joining them soon. They did not hold his gaze for long, but they obeyed.  
Sawney's voice was an ugly, wheezing thing by the time they finished with his knees.

"Over the side." Murdoch stated.

Alexander 'Sawney' Bean, the progenitor of the cannibal clan that had killed and eaten eight hundred people, drowned beneath the waves, his panicking, broken limbs spasming with pain as they tried to save his rapidly filling lungs.

In the end, Hamish Bean had disobeyed John's command to remain hidden, and had watched Alexander be tipped over the side. Sniffling and afraid, he caught the attention of the Hangman. The other crew followed their champion's gaze, their righteous vengeance replaced with something the mercenary had lost a hold of long ago.

"Bring him." The Hangman stated. He put a hand on Murdoch's shoulder, another on the axe.

The captain looked up at him, his eyes suddenly so tired. "He's just a boy," He whispered, his speech slurred as he almost staggered into him.

The Hangman arrested his fall. Murdoch looked up into those pitiless orbs, the Hangman's eyes like black glass. Up until this point, Murdoch had regarded his presence as a blessing, an opportunity to revenge himself upon the man who took his family. Now he was forced to remember the terrible, inescapable principle that seemed to drive this man.

"The job gets done."

The Hangman reclaimed his axe, and joined the crying boy at the side of the ship.

* * *

Two months later, the Hangman would be on his usual perch in a quaint little tavern in the riverside city of Nuremburg. He liked this city, despite the blemish on his record it reminded him of. A coach robber in a red scarf. A flourishing, mincing bastard. He remembered the smile in the pissant's eyes. It haunted a completionist like him.  
 _The one that got away…  
_ It was a crowning irony that a noose had stolen away the Hangman's shot at redeeming his perfect record.  
 _  
_"Excuse me, Steiner?" Asked an unfamiliar voice. The Hangman looked up from his tankard. The locals knew to steer clear of him. This must be a foreigner or an idiot.

"What." Steiner rumbled, disturbed from his melancholy and mead.

"A letter, from an arch-deacon."  
Steiner, the Hangman, turned and snatched the wax-sealed envelope, and read it then and there. It promised riches, but that was nothing new. Steiner read on. _A nobleman, perverted by his quest for personal power,_ that left Steiner sceptical. _I appeal to your sense of justice-_ that didn't interest him. He continued to skim the letter.  
 _-He is a madman. He has hired roving bandits, he commands a host of monsters, bringing ethereal creatures from plains beyond mortal ken-_  
"…Huh." Steiner murmured. That sounded intriguing.  
 _-His name is Stuart Fenton. I beseech you, bring him to justice, and you will never have to work again-_  
Steiner moved the veil that covered his mouth as he took in a deep draught, imagining how that would look on his list of accolades. _The Manticore of Prague, the coven of broken boughs, the Bean clan of Scotland, two score and eight men strong.  
Stuart Fenton, lord of the occult._  
Now that had a ring to it.  
 _  
_

* * *

"You did not even reach the vestibule of the manor." Fenton murmured sullenly.

Dismas was taken aback, his gaze flickering to Reynauld, the only other unscathed member of the scout party. "T-That's true enough, but you told us to see if the undead are real. They're not."

"You gave in." Fenton's expression was unkind as he leaned out from under the canvas of the wagon. "You did not even reach the barracks of the gatehouse complex, nor did you find the office. You failed to secure it."

"…That wasn't the job!" Dismas exclaimed, his brow knitted, aghast, "Boss, we found riches, we made those rumours out to be what they are! Rumours! we can always take another swing at it-"

"Oh? Can we? That's awfully gracious of you, 'Dismas'! I'm so glad you, with your worldly knowledge of finances, qualifications on asset management, and experience in liberating the souls of the hamlet, nay, _all of civilisation_ , from those mad enough to dabble in the occult!" Fenton's voice had risen to a shout, his fingers grasping the lip of the wagon board.

Dismas stepped back, his hands rising in surrender, not sure what to do or say. Fenton just stared him, wild eyed and angry.

"So it was your fuck up, is what you're saying." Reynauld murmured.

Dismas looked back at his companion as though he were mad, the sudden impact of boots hitting mud preceding the sight of Fenton getting in Reynauld's face.

"What did you just s _ay_ to me?!" Fenton hissed.

Reynauld did not move, though Dismas swore he could see the cogs moving behind the helm. "First, you gave Dismas unclear orders of what you expected of us. Secondly, you did not inform us that the estate had been made into a trap-maker's private playground. Thirdly, we encountered none of the walking dead – but they _do_ have heavy infantry down there. We had no other option but to withdraw." Reynauld said at length.

Fenton stood there, impotent in the face of the sense Reynauld was making, angry about things more troubling and less apparent than simple insubordination, on the thresh-hold of violence.

"Now," Reynauld said, shifting his posture so that he was not staring Fenton down, "I'd rate this a success. Nobody died. We acquired a haul substantial enough to hire enough coachmen, patrols, maybe even arm a small militia. The Old Road can be kept open. Am I right?"

Fenton swallowed his fury, before nodding his head.

"Right. Great. Glory to God, and all that. We will have more soldiers within the week. This is a victory. Am I right there?"

Fenton nodded again.

"Good. I suggest we make merry, then. For the benefit of the townsfolk." Reynauld asked.

Fenton's face lit up with a smile that Dismas didn't like. "Don't worry, I've already been to see Thames. He has a meal ready for you. Given the excitement of the past few days, I doubt you'll want to eat too much rich food." Fenton said airily.

"...That is heartwarming news, my lord." Reynauld said stiffly before the noble dismissed them.

* * *

He did not savour the idea of having gruel for supper.

Reynauld sighed heavily as he trudged away from the wagon, thinking about and giving up on removing the helmet. The weight, however significant, was comfortable, and had the wonderful side-benefit of hiding his face, his fear, his anger. He walked into the courtyard, the statue of Elias standing tall, knowing, confident in the knowing of things no-one today could recall. No-one sane. He halted, gazing up at the stone-carved statue.

 _Your grandson is as mad as you, isn't he?_

"Reynauld."

He turned to see Dismas hurrying to keep up.

"Brigand! What can I do for you?" Reynauld asked, his voice full of mocking mirth that he didn't truly feel.

Dismas wasn't put off, casting a thumb over his shoulder. "I didn't expect you to put your balls on the table on my behalf."

Reynauld's eyes rolled beneath his helmet, finding the expression uncouth. "It was arbitrary and stupid of him to punish you for a job well done. I imagine he knows that, but he needed it said aloud. Besides, hearing your lord shriek at the returning victors sends out a bad message, does it not?" He asked.

Dismas smiled visibly beneath the scarf. "I can respect that."

"Oh, you can, can you?" Reynauld asked, a laugh in his voice. _Respect? From a brigand?_

"Yeah. Though I suppose that's owed to you, isn't it, 'Ser' Reynauld?"

Once more, Reynauld was glad he wore the helmet. "I suppose it is," He lied, making his way towards the tavern.

"Reynauld!" Dismas called.

"What is i-" Reynauld staggered as something the size and weight of a small rock smacked off of his helmet, "Do you crave death, bastard?!" He roared on impulse, giving pause to look at the object in the mud. It was covered in white-and-red checkered cloth. He stooped to pick it up.

"Pork." Dismas called out.

"…Thank you, Dismas." Reynauld said as he removed what little mud had caked to the brightly coloured little parcel.

"You're welcome, my liege!" Dismas gave a deep, mocking bow before he headed up the steps towards the dilapidated abbey, its brown skeleton of rafters and beams of timber exposed for the world to see. Reynauld watched him go before his eyes settled on the abbey, thinking about and giving up on going there himself.

"…You've not listened so far." He decided aloud, speaking to no-one before turning and heading towards the sing-songs and clinking drinks of the tavern.

* * *

Author's note: Sawney Bean. Look him up. Almost certainly fictional fellow, but hey, why let that ruin a story? Hope you enjoyed this chapter, constructive criticism is always welcome.


	5. Chapter 5: The Second Wave

Steiner stared through the pock-marked and faded canopy of the wagon as it clattered along the Old Road, now shiny with the damp. Not once did he remove the varangian helmet, his black eyes surveying the wet, gnarled trees, the brown bark blemished by mushrooms and stalks of fungi the colour of bile. Since they'd entered the cursed forest, he had been straining his senses. He was on edge – and the men who shared his wagon did little to calm him, mister Emory least of all.

Their driver was a man who claimed to himself the title of Caretaker. He was nearing his elderly years, a pair of cracked round glasses perched on his hooked nose, his violet coat tattered and studded. It was his habits that disquieted Steiner – the way he laughed and sobbed and spoke in tongues, sometimes all at once.

The soldier, Steiner liked. He was a stout man with silvery hair cut severely short, his right eye obscured by an eyepatch. His apparel was an apparent compromise between style and protection – he wore an aged, dull breastplate beneath a badge and sash, his sleeves were ruffled and dyed red until they met the shoulder, obscured there by bronze trimmed pauldrons, his plate skirt preceding the red and yellow slops he wore. His shield was behind his back, and beyond examination, but the spiked, black mace that rested by his side had a history of violence behind it.  
The soldier had introduced himself as Barristan, and offered Steiner a drink from his wineskin.  
 _What's not to like?_ Barristan had tried to engage the Hangman in conversation, but after a series of one-word answers, he settled for comfortable silence, listening to the conversation at the back of the wagon.

* * *

"Why do you walk?" Asked a voice from the wagon, his powerful voice tempered by the sweet allure of Italy.

Ordgar's eyes stared down through the golden deathmask at the road, his gaze passing over the individual rounded grey pebbles and clods of dirt, his posture hunched as he carried his only companion – a worn down, lacklustre sword with a broken blade and a long handle – just above the trenches of mud the wagon's wheels gouged into the earth.

"May I have your name, ragged man?" The Italian insisted.

"Ordgar." He breathed.

"Why do you walk when the rest of us ride, Ordgar?" The Italian asked.

"I am sick."

"All the more reason for you to sit, and rest!" The Italian insisted, "I cannot take up all this room alone, my friend."

Ordgar's face mask lifted to regard the owner of the voice. It was a giant of a man, broad shouldered, his skin the colour of olives, his jowly, clean shaven face wearing a thin, upturning handlebar moustache and a reserved smile. He wore a dark, floppy hat that contained a mane of long, unruly dark hair, his robes black and his collar white. One of his hands was draped over the side of the wagon, his sleeve catching on the wooden lip and revealing the various tattoos that rose up his arm.

"Father," Ordgar lowered his head, the slideshow of rocks and mud returning to him. "I do not wish to risk infecting the others."

The Italian's brow knitted, nodding his head. "It would be a lot to ask of our comrades." Ordgar heard him, before he heard a crack, of wood groaning under significant weight. He lifted his gaze to see the Italian dismounting from the wagon, a bejewelled cross in hand. Seeing him on his feet, Ordgar only now realised just how tall the Italian was.

"I am Guido. I hail from Venice. Where are you from?" The Italian asked as he fell in beside him.

"I am from Wessex." Ordgar mumbled, feeling uncomfortable, widening the space between them by a few steps more.

"England, yes?" Guido clarified, his eyes searching the woods as they walked, "And why are you here, Ordgar of Wessex?"

"The tainted and crumbling stone may be discarded," Ordgar measured, "and still frustrate the heretic and the sodomite when cast at their temple."

The large priest walking beside him grew quiet, the rattling of the wagon's wheels and the natural, irregular disquiet of the weald filling the silence. For a moment, Ordgar expected the silence to remain, or for the large priest to clumsily divert away from the heavy subject matter.

"Will you allow me to follow the great Ordgar of Wessex, that I may chronicle his exploits?" Guido ventured softly.

Ordgar couldn't feel his eyes welling up, but he could see his vision misting. Outside of his keep, people avoided him, they deflected his true thoughts after asking for them, shying away. He could only blame them in his blackest moments, when impotent rage and pain overrode his good sense. Guido's words were a balm to him.

"I would welcome it, Guido of Venice." He managed. The monstrously proportioned priest inclined his head respectfully, and Ordgar was briefly comforted by the presence of a friend at his side.

* * *

Fenton's expression remained dour, from the beginning to the end of her testimony. "You are certain that _that_ is what occurred?"

She lay in a yellow-sheeted bed, in the only truly serviceable room in the tavern. The aged floorboards were thick with dust, the peaked roof bereft of holes or weather damage. The dresser had Sabine's dark, patchwork dress draped across it, stained with blood and filth. Her dark green medical bag and bone white, beaked plague-mask sitting upon a lone, wooden chair.  
Sabine, for her part, said nothing, her cropped hair a dirty blonde. She lay on her side, her round, handsome face occupied with an almost sullen pout as she decided what to say. Her hands fisted in the sheets, holding them to her body.  
Fenton did not think she was worried for her modesty. She was angry and worried, mulling over the ramifications of her words.

"…You won't tell the others." Sabine said, her eyes flicking towards him.

"No, I won't tell them." Fenton replied, resisting the urge to smile. _You know Dismas will do something._ "Will you entrust me to handle it?"

Sabine's eyes returned to staring at the boards of the wall, away from the small window with its criss-crossing patterning.

"Miss Blanc, I need your answer." He stated, feeling a spike of an ugly, impatient emotion in his breast as Sabine tarried. Fenton suppressed that intrusive irritability firmly. _Not now._

"Alright." She managed. Fenton could see the fabric in her hands move as she flexed her digits. An orgasmic, hitched moaning filtered through the very wall that Sabine stared at. That elicited an amused noise from Fenton, spying an opportunity to remove himself.

"I will have Thames' girls wash your things, when they aren't tied up." Fenton said, turning on one heel.

"Thank you, mister Fenton." Sabine sighed, her mind on other things.

Fenton took his leave, closing the old, oak door behind him, his liver-spotted, calloused hand lingering on the rusting brass knob. He inhaled deeply, the smell of dust assailing him, travelling from outside through the rotting, cramped walls of the inn's upper corridor.

 _If my spies in London, Paris and Rome are to be believed, I will have fresh soldiers by the morrow. If the deacon hasn't siphoned any of the funds I have given to him, work will begin on the abbey's roof, and Thames will renovate this awful place. If I don't have enough cash left over, the dwarf and the guildmasters will not believe me and keep their establishments closed, and I will not be able to secure the Old Road with trained militiamen. If I don't push on Junia hard enough, Sabine will take matters into her own hands. If I push too hard, in her delicate state... I know Dismas is hiding something from me, but if I press him, he will not recover. Reynauld was right, but if I act now, I will seem random in my judgement. We were repelled at the gatehouse, if I begin another tunnel, no, that would take too much time, if I had us try again, no, the enemy may be waiting for us, if, if, if, if, if.  
So many variables. I pour money into this venture, and I barely breakeven. If the next haul of treasure is as paltry as the last…  
_Fenton's lip curled into a sneer as he relinquished the door knob and made his way past the lovers' door, his hands shoving into the silk-lined pockets of his maroon coat.  
 _The letter was penned by Elias Wayne Fenton. He wasn't one for melodrama. Even if, -if- riches would be beyond our reach, I'm obliged to investigate my ancestor's findings, however ridiculous.  
_ His jackboots clumped on down the alder stairs, the muffled squeals fading beneath the joyous tumult of the bar's patrons. All of them were dressed in shabby and modest hose, jerkins or dresses, some of them displaying disturbing marks on their flesh. Some of these blemishes looked like bites, others looked like scratches, bruises.  
 _They're injuring themselves to give their stories credence,_ he decided, his thinking disturbed by the bawdy sing-song. That was the line he told himself as he made his way across the drink-stained, sticky floorboards towards the door. _It is possible that this is the reaction of lowborn folk without a plan or prospects – to gnaw at oneself miserably, the same way a wretched mongrel might, in the face of this alleged madness._  
Over the sea of heads, some covered by cloth skullcaps and leather hats, others displaying unruly birds-messes of hair, Thames loomed. Thames was the tavern owner, a bald, approachable wall of a man. He always had a sorrowful look about him, his grey chevron moustache no longer so kempt, his brow always knitted.  
His face reminded Fenton of a terrier – knowing, apologetic and in need of assurance. _An apt description for the lot of them._  
"My girl will need her things washed!" Fenton called out.  
Thames' mouth opened gormlessly for an instant before he nodded in the affirmative and offered Fenton a thumbs up before returning to his customers.  
"Sabine, up in the room we discussed." Fenton shouted for clarification before he made for the door.

* * *

He stepped out into the courtyard of Elias' statue.  
The sun was beating down relentlessly on the Hamlet, chasing the torrential rain. It reeked of baked dust, scorched earth and neglect. Heat and steam rose off of the ground, the buildings, the proud, unmoving statue of his ancestor and the collection of rubbish at the base.  
The visual effect of the effigy of his predecessor smouldering in the light of day did little to soothe Fenton's worries on the supernatural, and the smell of the garbage, cooking like this...  
He heard a gentle groan at the base of the statue, the heap of debris shifting. Fenton's hand flew to the silvered, ornamented handle of the dirk at his gaudy belt.  
No, it was human. _A drunken sot, in the middle of the day?  
_ He made his way over to the man, roughly taking ahold of him under the arm. "Get up." He ordered.

"Wassat, what." The drunk replied, his skin red with sunburn, his hooded eyes and hairy, flabby cheeks looking up at his escort with a mixture of fear and confusion as he was marched along with Fenton. His breath stank and held his hands close to his body, trembling as though deathly afraid. Fenton chalked it up to his own resemblance to his ancestor.

"What is your name?" Fenton asked airily.

"R-Ropot."The drunk managed.

"Drink rules you, Ropot," Fenton told him, his square jaw set, "and I'm headed for the abbey. Perhaps we can save you."  
Ropot complied, though he staggered and shambled this way and that, finding his way to the ground once or twice despite Fenton's best efforts to keep him moving aright. The noble stood back with a sigh, looking about himself for a subordinate or a lackey to compel, his eyes finding the battered wagon as it was dragged over the plain, stone bridge that led into the hamlet. It slewed to a halt outside the tavern.  
He watched as the passengers left the ratty canopy, reassured as his eyes hove over each one in turn.

Two of the adventurers were already disembarked. One of them was hooded and masked, a battered, bronze cuirass framed by bandaged limbs and a worn, white cowl and golden mask. He carried a notched, broken blade that now more closely resembled a giant cleaver than a proper sword.  
The other pedestrian was larger, and garbed in a black robe, an ornate, bejeweled and heavy cross held in his meaty hands.

A warrior punched aside the canopy as he dismounted, his facial features obscured by a studded varangian helmet and a purple fabric that masked his nose, mouth and neck. He wore dull leathers over overlapping metallic leaves of scale armour. At his belt was a loop of rope that terminated in a crimson stained hook, an ornate axe head was visible from his back-  
And he was looking right at him.

"Lord Fenton?" Dismas spoke up.

"Dismas." Fenton asked, letting the drunk slip from his hands into the baking mud, forcing a smile onto his face as he regarded the former coach robber. He still wore his dusty black jacket, the rusted gold buttons on the folded cuffs and the ruined and stained ermine fur trim on the coat's collar, both solid indicators that the coat had once belonged to someone richer and less fortunate.

"I was told to report to you." Dismas ventured, his eyes wary and pitiable, his mouth, as ever, hidden behind the red scarf that he wore about his neck, his hair raven black, short and unruly. Fenton could sense that Dismas was on guard around him. _And I suppose he has every reason to be,_ Fenton thought grudgingly.

"Indeed. You did exemplary work making the first initial excursion into the ruins, and identified that there are enemies down there. I want you to lead another expedition to take the gatehouse. Make it ours. Over there," Fenton turned to wave at the wagon, "Are warriors. No need for doctors, priestesses, or soldiers of God."  
The man in the helmet and veil was nowhere to be seen, now. Fenton could see a one-eyed soldier speaking to a nervous, slobbering wreck that could only be mister Emory whilst the large priest laughed at something the morose, masked man had said.

"Are you sure?" Dismas asked from his side, bringing Fenton's attention back to the highwayman.

"I'm under a lot of pressure to make this work, Dismas," Fenton explained, cutting to the meat, "I took it out on you. I'm sorry I did that." _I can't promise it won't happen again, though._ "You brought everyone back alive. Will you do this for me? Will you lead these men in recapturing the gatehouse complex?"

"You asked nicely enough, boss." Dismas noted, unconsciously straightening his back, attentive. _So very malleable, so easily twisted to the cause._ Fenton inwardly chastised himself for that thought – _is this how Elias had handled his underlings? For the sake of the ends, any means necessary?_

"How is Sabine?" The highwayman asked him. Fenton's expression softened, a sad smile on his face.

"She's fine," He lied, "though she urged me not to speak about her. She frets that she'll cause unnecessary worry."

Dismas seemed satisfied with that, though he had more questions, it seemed. "Will Junia be alright?"

 _What does it matter? If what I hear is true, I'll have her head on the chopping block._ "Antoine says that with enough time, enough peace and quiet, she'll recover." He decided.

"Antoine?"

"A lay-priest. The deacon seems to be avoiding me, not that I mind," Fenton dismissed the inquiry, his expression growing stern, "Now, _Uncatchable_ , go down there and show them what happens to evil men."

Dismas attempted a salute before hurrying on over to the wagon. As Fenton's hand snapped back down onto the shivering drunk, he heard the highwayman's gruff voice shout for the attention of the newcomers.  
Fenton smiled, and returned to helping the sot up the uneven, stone staircase to the violated abbey door.  
He was glad enough for the shelter it provided from the oppressive sun.

He guided the inebriated gentleman through the hole in one of the doors, the wood torn and splintered. He almost walked his new friend into Antoine, who rushed to help without asking.  
"What caused this damage?" Fenton asked as he regarded the tired, thin features of the lay-priest, the circle of hair that crowned him the colour and consistency of straw. Fenton swore he could see a fork in his small tuft of a beard as the man smiled sadly.  
"A cannon ball, I think, is the term." Antoine whispered, as together they half-carried the incapable Ropot through the cold grey and blueish hued antechamber.

"Was my ancestor fond of using artillery on townsfolk?" Fenton asked, a note of disbelief in his voice. He had never known or met his ancestor, but given his reputation in the wider world, he had assumed Elias might meet mundane problems with appropriate solutions, not devilish force.

"He wasn't, but his mercenaries had no qualms with it." Antoine told him as they passed under a crumbling archway into the hall of the abbey. Almost all of the pews had a fine coating of dust, and the altar was bare – whatever was of value had likely been stolen or sold. Precious few flags hung from the roof, with a few tattered remnants the colours of red and black – the colours used in Fenton's heraldry.  
He couldn't begrudge the townsfolk that.  
A gaping hole in the roof's tiles – likely opened by grievous weather damage or by yet more cannon fire – had been made that allowed the sunlight – and on darker nights, the elements – to pour into the hall, illuminating part of the altar and the rail that preceded, along with the solitary individual that knelt by it.  
The lone penitent wore a faded brown robe beneath plate armour, so moulded as to betray the feminine figure of the wearer.

"Has she improved?" Fenton asked, jutting his chin in the direction of the kneeling vestal.

"She has, yes." Antoine replied, shifting as he held up more of Ropot's weight.

"Good. We will talk later, Antoine, of these enforcers of my predecessor. Ensure that Ropot here is fed and watered." Fenton stressed that last word before parting ways with the pair of them, his jackboots clumping on the dark, creaking floorboards of the aisle, inwardly wincing as he stepped into the blazing light. He already found himself missing the airy, sheltered coolness.

He knelt down by the prioress, the altar railing hot to the touch. He leaned on the fabric of his clothing and kept his hands from the wood, his elbows settling, his eyes staring straight ahead, past the pillaged altar at the stained glass window above, depicting the image of Jesus, his face tranquil and beatific as he cradled a lamb in one arm, his other hand holding a crook. It was hard to maintain his gaze on the window.  
He told himself that the sun was in his eyes.

"Sister Junia." He stated, his voice giving nothing away.

No response.

"Prioress, tell me what happened." Fenton said, finding his own voice impossibly loud in the relative quiet of the abbey.

"He hurt her." Junia said finally, her voice damaged and quiet as she turned to regard Fenton. Her features were fair, her face heart-shaped, her eyes drooping and a dark, ocean-blue. An iron mace club hung at her sash-tied waist, her rough-shod armoured skirt and breast plate grazed and nicked in a dozen places. Her face was beaded with sweat, shaded by the hood she wore. She was determined to pray for forgiveness, even in this heat.  
 _A guilty conscience…_

"How did he manage to hurt her?" Fenton asked smoothly as he stared ahead, coaxing the answers from her.

"I believed him over her." Junia's voice cracked. Fenton's eyes widened as he turned himself from the altar to look upon her. This was not the confession he expected.

"He had done so much for the convent. Given so much. I-I didn't believe her when she told me, I scolded her, the next day I-I found her, swaddled in the sheets…" Junia's head lowered back towards the rail and her shoulders began to shake.

"What did you do?" Fenton asked haltingly, his brow knitting, suddenly very uncertain about this line of questioning.

"T-they blamed me. T-they never said it, but I could see it in their eyes. _You_ did this. She's gone because of _you!_ " Junia struggled to master herself, her gloved hands shaking with grief as they gripped the wooden rail.

"…What did you do next, Junia?" Fenton asked, his own curiosity aroused, along with a sense of dread.

"I-I tried to make it right," Her teeth bit into her bottom lip, drawing blood, her elbows propped on the altar rail as she sank her head into her hands, "I stormed into the manor and-and I-" Her voice trailed away.

Fenton was stupefied. The woman that knelt beside them had been so unmanned by whatever had occurred in the ruins, she had relived times and deeds that plagued her even now. Disturbing and fascinating though it was, he had to bring her back on track.

"Sabine is going to be alright," Fenton chose his words carefully, "and I have suppressed the truth of the matter. Only you, Sabine and myself know, but we need to know more. What drove you to it?" He asked, going so far as to reach out, his hand going between spiked pauldron and sleeve to grip her shoulder gently.

The gesture threw a shudder into Sabine, as though she momentarily expected a raised voice or an open palm. It seemed she realised she hadn't answered Fenton's question.  
"I-I panicked. The scent of rot, the sight of bone and sloughing flesh…"

That queasy feeling in Fenton's stomach returned. "What are you talking about? There are only looters and grave robbers beneath." He insisted, his brow furrowed, mouth agape as he stared at Junia. The grip on her shoulder was no longer one of comfort as he turned her to him.

"The dead walk. They walk, they fight, and they will kill everyone in the hamlet," Junia murmured, a light in her eyes as her gaze met Fenton's, only now seeming to recognise him, "you're the first to believe me."

The small, maroon book was in her hand, offered up to Fenton. "Read for yourself."

He snatched it from her, pushing himself from the railing as he stood up, snapping the leather cover open. He leafed through the delicate, wafer-thin paper, speed-reading, feeling a chill crawl up his spine as idle journal entries transformed into troubling reports and melancholic fantasies that the owner had written; of the hamlet's inhabitants and Stuart's predecessor, his court and his closest retainers. his eyes settled on the last entry, one of despairing finality.

 _This will be my last entry.  
Lord Fenton has mastered the art of necromancy. I know this, because he has returned my brothers-in-arms to me. Lord Fenton knows me well. He knows my duties of guarding the estate from its own people has weighed upon me. He knows his orders to cull the populace is a betrayal that goes beyond pretty words and fanciful oaths of fealty.  
The last time I saw him, he was angry. He was 'a hair's breadth from breaking through', and his wolves had failed to subjugate the people, and ordered me to 'hold the grounds at any cost'. I informed him that the gatehouse was overrun, and the garrison had been whittled away, by superstition and the attrition of war. I had no men with which to hold the line.  
He showed me into one of the many halls of his manor, and I saw scores of them. Some of them had been dead long ago, their bones yellowed and dull, their movements like unskilled puppetry, clasping blunt blades and wooden clubs. Others were… significantly more fresh.  
That was when Fenton introduced me to my old friends. Their jig sawn flesh was pallid and sat in untidy heaps upon their frames as Fenton rambled about the process, the scent of bad meat heavy in the air. 'With these, and many others, you will reclaim the gatehouse.  
Deny all intruders. Do not let Death stop you.'  
One of them tried to embrace me – I think it was the corpse that had once been Leofric.  
I cannot stay here. I will leave through the main gate, or one of the innumerable sally ports, and fight my way clear, through the brave and goodly people of the Hamlet if I must. I will not let Fenton use me. I will not be paraded around like a totem at the head of his host.  
Damn you and yours to hell, Elias.  
_  
Fenton's hand shook as he lowered the journal. _Scores of these things. Innumerable sally ports._  
 _Dismas and his troop._  
"Antoine!" Fenton demanded, turning, "Get me Reynauld, and-"

His voice faltered as he spotted the man in the varangian helm, standing in the doorway. He was holding the grappling hook in one of his hands, the other holding the loop of rope.

"May I help you?!" Fenton snarled.

The stranger said nothing. Fenton advanced towards the door.

"I've come to collect." The bounty hunter stated.

Fenton scowled as he came to a halt. "Oh, fuck off, will you?" He barked, "I'll pay you double whatever your employer did."

"It's not about the money." The bounty hunter replied, stepping lazily to the side as the hand swung the hook up, round and around, describing a long, oval arc, the hook singing a low, heavy whistle as it circled above the benches.

Fenton felt his eye twitch as mortal fear stabbed into the wild mess of emotional stress and strife he felt. He'd only spent a week here. A week, trying to incentivise and command a superstitious throng of townsmen to pull together, trying to ensure the main trade artery, the Old Road, stayed open so he could bring soldiers in and send out his wealth, trying to wipe away the dynastic stain that had doomed and damned these people – and then there were the rumours of things other than wolves feasting on human flesh, the broken web of farmlands, naval supply routes, the mills, the watch-towers, so many assets in need of repair and refitting, so many lost souls in need of rescue and redemption…  
This was ridiculous. He was far too busy to die.  
Here, in this moment, Fenton could feel his resolve being tested…

Fenton drew his dirk – the long, gold-hilted thrusting dagger a familiar weight in his hand.  
"Are you going to keep swinging that hook around, or do you intend to use it?" He asked, his voice cold and hard.

The hook flicked out. Fenton's eyes widened as he ducked to the side, the hook scythed down, digging hard into the lip of the pew Fenton had used as cover.  
The bounty hunter pulled, hard, and the pew fell backwards, the upturning bench's legs staggering the nobleman as he rushed for more shelter. The grapnel hook followed him in a sideways arc, missing once more as Fenton dived to the ground. The bounty hunter started to walk as he retrieved the grapnel, the hook skipping off of pew heads with wooden, weighty _thunks_ before sounding its dull, watchful whistle as it flew above its owner. The bounty hunter walked the aisle, staring down the lanes of pews.  
Fenton cursed as he was spotted, having moved on hands and knees towards the central aisle where he might be able to engage the bounty hunter in melee. He shouldered the hard wood of the bench, hard.  
The hook whistled down, and Fenton cried out as he caught a glancing blow on the shoulder, his arm numbed. It had hit like a hammer, and if he hadn't crazed into the back of the bench the way he had, it might have struck something more vital.  
 _ **Such a terrible assault cannot be left unanswered!**_  
The impressive, goading words lingered in his head as he watched the bounty hunter yank the hook home, the grapnel already gathering momentum for another pass.  
"JUNIA!" Fenton bellowed, surging to his feet, forcing himself to tear his attention away from the bounty hunter to direct his gaze, his voice, his authority at the vestal at the rail.  
She had risen to her feet, her teeth ground together as she raised the metal mace club, the terror of her past still fresh in her head. "I condemn thee for thy sins, adulterer!" She declared in a clear voice, her mouth still moving as the end of her mace was blotted out by a brilliant bang before Fenton's eyes were criss-crossed by a bolt of light for all of a split-second.  
The roar of thunder blasted his ears as his eyes tried and failed to keep up with the supernatural flash of fury, managing to see the bounty hunter bounce off one of the pews. _Was he struck? God in Heaven, the Light is formidable!_  
Fenton sprang after the bounty hunter, who had sprawled down the aisle. The sharp, sweet stink of ozone was in his nostrils as he thrust down with the dirk.  
The bounty hunter met it with his hand, the point punching through the palm before he awkwardly levered his axe up into Fenton's face.  
Fenton's vision disappeared in one eye as it met the curved edge of the ornate weapon.  
Fenton's mouth went slack as the pain lanced through him, recoiling, his eye seeming to explode into white-hot agony. The mercenary moved beneath him, extending his arm down the aisle, trying to gather enough room in this scramble on the floor for one clean shot at the nobleman's head.  
The vestal's boot slammed down on his outstretched hand. With a tiny grunt, the bounty hunter's hand spasmed, the axe no longer his, his other hand going for his belt-  
 _ **Anger is power.  
Unleash it!**_  
The bounty hunter's helmet cracked off of the cold flagstones of the abbey as a fist smashed into his jaw.  
Stuart Fenton was a strong man, capable, and possessed an inexhaustible store of will. Coupled with the legendary temper that seemed hereditary to the Fenton line, he was capable of necessary cruelty and ferocious violence so breath-taking in scope and depth that even the most hard-bitten of foes had surrendered to be spared his wrath.  
That wrath was now focused entirely on the lower jaw of the bounty hunter in the veil, at his mercy.

"You come into my house?!" Fenton hissed, knocking the mercenary's head sideways.

"And try to stop me?! _Me_?!" His voice was strangled with pain and rage, another blow to the bounty hunter, still supine.

The bounty hunter went limp after the next vicious hook, but the nobleman did not care. He raised the fist for another brutal strike-  
"What in God's name happened here?!" Antoine cried out. Fenton's fists shook as he glared at Antoine, his trance broken, his right eye bleeding profusely, the rest of his face full of a dark fury.

"Get the Caretaker. Have him put this man in the cells, then get Reynauld, and take Junia, anyone else, and Sabine's bag! Dismas is walking into a trap!" Fenton demanded, only growing angrier as he watched Antoine's mouth open, his eyes wide with fear.

" _Do it_!" He shrieked.

* * *

Author's note: Oh daaaamn the ancestor gets a typeface all to himself!  
Sorry it took so long guys, life got in the way of things. I recieved another Crusader in this run, and decided 'why not base this one off of the Exorcist fan art done by AKAperly?' Go look at it! It's absolutely glorious! I'd provide a link, but this site doesn't care for that, apparently.  
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, people. Much love.


	6. Chapter 6: A Tide of Bones

_**"Initially, the gatehouse of my estate served as the portal between the hamlet's gentle folk and my court. For the briefest of eras, we enjoyed prosperity and a polite friendship with one another. That is, until my… 'hobbies', took on a more sanguine deviancy, and later, an infernal curiosity.**_

 _ **As I spent more of my riches on debauched pleasures, purchases of damnable fetishes and the services of unscrupulous sorts, the men and women of the town grew more mistrustful of me, their suspicion giving way to anger as rumours filtered back through those courtiers and bondsmen who could no longer stomach my ventures.**_  
 _ **I had already taken measures to dissuade the hamlet's inhabitants from interrupting my efforts, however.**_

 _ **I had secured the assistance of sadistic and sallow skinned trap makers from the east, and, provided with my fabulous wealth and numerous work crews, they turned the once welcoming, opulent gatehouse into a deceptive vestibule that led into a subterranean, tenebrous maze of ingenious traps, hidden doors and booby-trapped cul-de-sacs.**_  
 _ **If I had known I'd be asking you to travail through this labyrinth, I wouldn't have disposed of those inscrutable chinamen so lightly."**_

* * *

"I was a highwayman…  
Along the coach roads I did ride…  
Sword and pistol by my _side…_ "

"Shut up."

The clinking of his tiny chisel ceased. The fire was set in the centre of the dank, straw mat strewn barrack house, the four explorers surrounding the crackling flames. Dismas looked sidelong at the big Italian, the one who had spoken up, the one who had gotten along with him so well before they entered this place. Before the going got tough. Guido was hunched up towards the campfire, his gaze hooked by the flickering tongues of light.  
He wasn't here, Dismas decided. Dismas had managed to disarm the handful of traps they had encountered, and they had scored a sizeable haul – but they had travelled the same – or what had looked like the same – hallway for the third time now, and Dismas had led them there.  
Guido was faraway, because here was hell, and Dismas had led them here.  
 _He can have his reprieve, if it saves them biting my head off,_ Dismas lowered his head and continued to chisel the fine flint stones he kept with him in silence, his eyes regarding his fellows between strikes.  
Across the fire, he could see the leper, poor, half-blind Ordgar, staring at his broken cleaver of a sword, his expression inscrutable for the golden mask and the white cowl. He was strangely animated, disturbed, leaning in, tilting his head, his poor sight struggling to see the sword for what it was, or the reflection he cast.  
The old soldier, Barristan, was the only one who gave Dismas any respect in these trying circumstances, and so Dismas' hawkish face turned to him. He saw that the man-at-arms was tired, his single remaining eye seeming to glaze over the worn papers in his gloved hand.

"What're you reading?" Dismas asked, barely looking up from his gun.

It took a while for Barristan to realise he was being addressed, his pouting mouth causing his grey moustache to rise.

"Old plans."

"For a farm, or something?"

"No," Barristan said in a wearied voice, "Formations and fighting."

"Formations and fighting? Say, we do those things, don't we lads?" Dismas exclaimed, a smile in his eyes. He only received a poisonous stare from Guido.

"Right, let's hear about it." Dismas said, chipping away at the replacement flintstones.

Barristan looked up from the papers, a ghost of a smile on his hard jaw. "It's not particularly exciting to listen to."

Dismas knew that, of course – but he also knew that people _loved_ talking what they knew about. In this unfamiliar maze, with these virgin adventurers, with all kinds of bad feelings and half-imagined noises going on about them, Dismas would happily ingratiate himself towards the veteran, and fill the air with lively talk as he cleaned his guns.

"Discipline is what it's all about. If you know the worth of yourself, that gives you something to cling to when the fighting is hardest." Barristan said, his voice more animated.

"Huh. Couldn't agree more," Dismas smiled, "Hard not to feel confident when you're the Uncatchable."

"Who?" Barristan asked, nonplussed.

"…Forget it." Dismas muttered, "So how do you go about getting disciplined, in the army?" He asked, capitalising on the soldier's mood. As he listened, he put the last dark chunk of flint on the fabric before reaching for the clothed rope, dabbing it with a generous dose of oil.

"Initially? Marching. A lot of marching." Barristan said with a rueful smile.

"I can tell I'd hate it." Dismas muttered, smiling beneath his scarf as the sergeant laughed. Whilst Guido sullenly lay with his back to them, and Ordgar stared into space, the highwayman and the man-at-arms talked on into the night, sharing first watch and giving no opportunities for dark imaginings to unman the group.  
In the end, in what passed for morning in that subterranean complex, they would find true abominations that would test their mettle.

* * *

"They're here!" Came the rasping cry.

Dismas' eyes screwed tightly shut, recognising the unwelcome sound of an angry, strained voice invading his dreams.  
Then the terrible implication behind the pitch, the words, and the ghostly moaning underlining it all left his eyes as wide as coins.  
"Strengthen us in the power of Your might, O God!" The Italian managed as Dismas rose from the straw mattress, his hand tearing his short sword from its scabbard. He could hear retching, groaning noises, the clicking and the clacking of what sounded like puppets clattering together. Guido waved the torch this way and that, the radiating light painting the foe in shades of gold.  
There were ten of them, looming out of the black. Skeletal remnants of people long dead, animated and bearing weapons and armour. Not all of them gleamed a bone yellow – some of them had the heavy stench of death about them, their flesh a parchment brown, a sickly green, smatterings of blood red.  
"Shit!" Dismas screamed, moving to parry one of the skeletons' strikes. He staggered back as an axehead smashed down on the dull short sword he wielded.

"Push them back!" Barristan snarled, suddenly there and loud and larger than life as he barged the attacker with his shield. The skeleton exploded backwards into the dark, scattering into pieces as its brothers shambled forward.

"Close on me! Ordgar! Fall in!" He demanded, his morning star a pitch-black blur that blew apart the undead horde.  
Dismas swept in, his sword snaking out and lashing out at the skeletons – but almost every time, his blade slipped between ribs, failed to shatter bones, or was turned aside by their uncanny reactions.

"Force them to the door!" Barristan declared, and began to move forward. To Dismas' surprise, the priest and the leper obeyed, their blunt and heavy weapons making the undead die again.  
But they did not die easily.  
A man's head, once pulverised, made an end of him. So too did a punctured heart, a slit throat, and a handful of vitals and other areas privy to knowing doctors and experienced killers. The dead did not care for these rules. A broken skull, a splintered ribcage, a shattered vertebrae, all too often these were answered with vengeful reprisals. Ordgar beheaded one of the remnants with a sweep of his sword, only for the body to carry on and deliver an axe into his bronzed cuirass. Guido smashed the legs out from one of them only to have a wooden club sweep up into his brow, blinding him terribly. Barristan nearly lost his good eye as he caught his weapon in a target's sternum as it stabbed up at his face.

"Close on me! Strike from beneath my aegis!" Barristan cautioned. Dismas didn't know what an aegis was, but persisted, sneaking a blow at one skeleton in a bloodied and ruined gambeson. It staggered back, its nasal cavity shattered by a stab, but not before swinging its weapon sideways at Dismas.  
Barristan stopped the blow dead with his shield, before shoving the foe down onto the flagstones.  
But the enemy were too many. Barristan weathered the barrage of blows with splint and shield, but the others began to tire. Dismas was favouring one of his legs, Guido's face was set into an awful grimace, and even Ordgar had nearly collapsed.

"Fall back! Abandon the barrack house!" Barristan declared.

"But the gold!" Dismas shouted above the tumult of steel on splint and bone. Barristan spared a glance towards the campsite, their spoils in heavy, bulging bags, obscured by a shifting, rattling tide of advancing skeletons.

"A fool's errand! Withdraw!" Barristan urged.

Barristan turned on the door as soon as they were through, shunting body and shield against it. "Find something to block this! A bookcase, a halberd for the handle, anything heavy!" He shouted.  
He did not hear a sound behind him.

"Lads?!" He turned to glance over his shoulder.

He saw the backs of Guido and Dismas, transfixed, helpless, staring up into a ghastly blue corona barred by a cage. The torch in Guido's hand had snuffed out, as though this errant and unnatural star hungered for light.

"Dismas!" Barristan snarled.

Dismas shuddered, taking a backward step, offering Barristan a terrible view to the creature.  
The blue flames engulfed a human skull, hemmed in by a spiked collar of iron. Its impossibly tall body was clad in yellow and gold rags and tatters, appearing humanoid at first glance. Then Barristan saw the webbed wall of pleading, anguished faces, browned with age, that made up the creatures body. Hundreds of them stared back at him.  
Barristan swore he could see himself amongst them. He saw the monster's gloved hand as it rested on Dismas' head, fingers sifting through the dirty black hair, curling into a fist-  
The door banged against the old soldier. Barristan threw himself against it, with half a mind to throw the damn thing open and take his chances against the undead. Barristan could hear the hive-swarm in his head, the fear, the hopelessness. He was a mouse in a maze. He was fraying at the seams. He was- He couldn't-  
He heard an otherworldly shriek behind him, causing Barristan to look again. The creature sagged, its many faces, its _collection_ crying out in fear and pain as a broken blade bit deep into its side.  
Barristan's sweat-beaded face regarded the creature, the banging on the other side of the door forgotten for a moment.

Poor, half-blind Ordgar stood between it and his comrades. The leper, unable to see so clearly, had struck out at the thing. "See how the yellow king recoils before the wretch?" Ordgar rasped, forcing a laugh. "Do we not bleed all the same?!" He shouted over his shoulder.

To Barristan's immense relief, Ordgar's words galvanised Dismas and Guido, and they threw themselves at the Collector.  
Another stentorian impact on the door forced Barristan to direct his energies at the door, praying that his comrades would be enough to kill that supernatural monster.  
He prayed he could hold the door for long enough.

* * *

"Bring the light closer." Fenton demanded, his eye squinting as he read the individual labels of the toughened vials and fat-bottomed, sea-green flasks of liquids in Sabine's bag. His right eye would heal, Sabine had told him, but he couldn't see out of it. That made his task difficult. He was squatting by Sabine's green medical bag, his maroon coat splayed beneath him as he searched for the concoction that would save them all.

"We may not be enough to hold this place." Junia murmured beneath her brown hood and bandaged forehead.

"'This place'?" He asked absently, sifting through the names. _Hemlock. Leeches. Quicklime. Vetch. Radish and hollowleek.  
_  
"The hamlet." Junia said quietly.

Fenton found that suggestion unhelpful, and ignored it as he searched for it, his eyes skimming over yellowed labels and spidery writing. _Red nettle. Blood herb.  
_  
"Did you hear me?"

"Don't be such a fucking defeatist, Prioress." He sneered back, fear and frustration growing as he searched. _Rotgut. Rotgut._ The name rolled around in his head as he rifled through the bag, hearing tinctures clink together, forcing himself to slow. A broken bottle could kill them both, he had no idea what potent medicines and virulent diseases the plague doctor kept in her green medical bag.

"I saw what I saw, and if they are in such numbers-"

"I have it." Fenton cut her off, hoisting up the bottle of fluids, one poorly chosen whiff causing him to breathe through his mouth. "Give me some light, I said – and keep an eye out."

Junia pursed her lips as she stepped closer, the torch aloft in one hand as she strained her hearing. She could hear _something._ Shifting debris? The fading strength of the wind through the tunnel?  
More of the shambling abominations?  
Slowly, deliberately, the mace handle slid into the vestal's hand, steeling herself for whatever might loom out of the shadows.

* * *

Leofric was dead. Again.  
Gauen hacked at the door with such ferocity and industrious anger that he almost thought he was alive again. Loyalty, grief, chivalry, shame. He could almost taste these things, these concepts, these now foreign things that had made him, him. He could feel something dark and terrible surging to the fore of his insubstantial, decaying being, its very bow-wake driving his rotting limbs mad.  
A thirst for vengeance. To inflict hurt and death on those who had killed his brothers.  
His axe bit deep into hard wood of the barrack house's entrance. Splinters flew as the opening widened.  
On the other side, Barristan made a miserable sound, forcing his shield towards the breach. He blocked it for a time, but the gap widened, spear tips lashing in and nearly catching his neck. He stepped away, his eyes catching a glimpse of malicious, long dead foes as he readied his morning star.  
"Dismas, lead us home!" He cried as he beat aside another spear thrust.

The monster had first removed Ordgar from the fight by reaching within his cloak, tearing one of the many heads from its 'collection' with the sounds of tearing cloth and piteous weeping, before tossing the grisly trophy his way. As it had travelled through the air, spectral light flooded from its eyes, and before it even reached the leper its insubstantial body had lit up, an ethereal blade checking his advance.  
Dismas opened a ragged seam in the Collector's cloak with his blade. It recoiled, its gloved hand swinging about. Guido stepped in, swinging down the ornamented, weighty cross-  
The blow never landed. The air grew red-hot for an instant before the big Italian staggered backwards, his eyes, nose, ears and mouth expelling streams of blood. With a strangled noise and jetting blood all the while, Guido of Venice collapsed.  
Dismas fought like a cornered animal, hacking and slicing at the Collector's maze of flesh and living coat, frenziedly ducking and weaving beneath its arms, desperate to avoid the terrible power that leapt from its hands.  
Somewhere in that sea of faces, Dismas saw his own. His own reflection stared longingly up at him, spectral light and dried blood surrounding its sockets.  
In that instant, Dismas could see his end.  
"No." Dismas said numbly, dumbly as the Collector raised its hand, feeling an abnormal warmth prick at his skin as the air charged with blood boiling heat.  
Blood the colour of night jetted out from the 'elbow' of the Collector's arm as the longsword cleaved through it. Dismas sagged, the after-image of his pleading, miserable face in that webbed wall of alien flesh rapidly receding from his head as the stranger advanced on the Collector.

"It is time to leave!" Reynauld barked.

Dismas had never been happier to see the crusader. Armoured head to toe, all aspect of brittle humanity replaced with rusted, sturdy steel and the stirring iconography of the chapter houses on his blue tatter of a tabard.

"Highwayman! Help me kill this thing!"

The highwayman grimaced beneath his scarf as he drew his pistol.

* * *

In ones and twos, the people of the Hamlet came closer and closer to the shoddy tunnel opening, hushed whispers travelling between them after seeing the owner of the estate disappear into the dark of that opening, after his adventurers. Some of the realists contemplated taking down the pillars, burying them inside – but before that plan gained any support, Fenton emerged with his henchmen at the run. The large priest in his black and white robe was being jointly carried by Barristan and Reynauld, whilst Ordgar was gently led by Junia. Dismas followed the party by a few meters, his hands occupied by his treasure pack.  
To a man, they all looked the worse for wear. Bleeding, battered, but alive.  
"You," Fenton pointed at a random onlooker, "fetch us axes, hammers." The man in his leather jerkin obeyed, allowing him a moment to survey the entrance. He doubted he would need the tools, but he wasn't going to leave anything to chance.

"Boss." Fenton turned to regard Dismas, who had his treasure pack open to him. Beyond the bend of the satchel's flap, he saw a brilliant stalk of crystal.

"Oh…" Fenton couldn't help but chuckle as he took ahold of it, dragging it from the satchel and holding it aloft to the clouding sky. Red light dotted the bottom of the hefty trapezohedron, the colours a potent violet, shifting to an azure blue, a dazzling gold…

"The supports…" Junia managed, glancing back over at the tunnel.

"Shush. It will fall." Fenton said knowingly.

* * *

It took all of Ser Gauen's willpower to cease his inexorable march forward as he heard the hissing. His empty sockets lowered, stepping to the side to allow his innumerable cohorts on, out through the tunnel and into the hamlet. His sightless gaze lowered to one of the wooden beams that supported the roof. He saw a lime-green residue, a seething foam. He reached out with his armoured gauntlet, raising his fist to regard the bubbling matter. He struggled, focusing, but saw how it ate at his iron, feeling a prick of pain as his rotting flesh began to react. Several more skeletal soldiers marched past him, wielding weapons of war as he gradually pieced things together with his thrall mind, realization dawning.  
His gauntlets went forward to the pillar, cupping behind the wooden strut as it was eaten away by the acids. Grateful, he thought of the love he held for his brother knights and his duty to his oaths, for an instant overwhelming the raw jealousy and supernatural fury that flowed from without.  
In that instant, he pulled.

* * *

"We, are ramping up operations!" Fenton exclaimed as he heard a tremendous crash and the rumbling thunder of the tunnel giving out behind them. He did not turn around.  
"Enough of this skulking beneath the shadow of the manor! Civilisation is here to reclaim you all, abominations be damned!" He raged, a vicious smile on his face, the colour shifting crystal held up like a beacon. held up like a beacon. "Tonight, we drink, for we are still alive – and tomorrow, we toil."

"You acquitted yourself well, judging by Barristan's words." Reynauld told Dismas, a smile in his voice.  
Dismas wasn't smiling.  
"Is your tongue cut out? Answer me, highwayman." Reynauld said, his visor lowering to regard the satchel. "What other trinkets have you got?"  
He reached in, his fingers grazing what felt like soft fur. He peered in, seeing red matter mat the brown hair.  
He froze for a moment, fingers curling in that mess of short hair, pulling it from the bag as he crowded Dismas.  
Junia's drooping, ice-blue eyes stared sightlessly into his, her mouth and nose dried with blood.

"God save us." Reynauld breathed, "What do we do?"

Dismas' eyes drifted over to Junia, the real, breathing Junia, who was examining Fenton's wounded eye, cupping his cheek gently. She looked weary, upset, but still moved dutifully.  
Together, Dismas and Reynauld replaced the head in its sack. "I think I should take this to Fenton, or Antoine. We can bury it in the graveyard."  
Reynauld nodded in agreement. "Fenton. He should know what to do. Whether this is some demon trick, or we have a shapeshifter amongst us, we should keep it quiet."

Dismas tried not to think about his own face woven into that gold cloak. It seemed his attempts didn't go unnoticed.

"A grisly business, but I've just the method to alleviate it. Tavern? I imagine you need a drink or twelve." Reynauld suggested, turning to lead the highwayman down from the dig towards the cluster of houses.  
"Would you come with me to the cloister?" Dismas asked.

"What, so we can walk around in a square?" Reynauld replied tersely.

"Yeah? What's wrong with that? Allows for walking and talking."

"Sounds like something that could be enhanced with a tankard in hand."

"Do you not want to set foot in the abbey?"

"I've- where exactly did that come from?" Reynauld said, spiky.

"I never see you in there." Dismas replied with a shrug.

"Perhaps I've no need for penance and contemplation, brigand." Reynauld countered, regretting his tone the instant his words left him.

Dismas smiled sardonically beneath his scarf. "Fuck you, crusader." He said wearily, and walked away from him.

Part of Reynauld wished he had shouted an apology after the brigand. Another part of him wanted to shout in Dismas' face for daring to question his piety, to pry into matters that didn't concern him.  
He did neither, instead making his way down towards the tavern, following the main group of people. He saw Guido laid out on a plank of wood large enough to encompass his massive form before he was carried by a group of peasants towards the Abbey, under Junia's direction.  
His eyes lingered on the priestess, her taut mouth and keen gaze so at odds with the transfixed and horrified expression in the sack.  
Reynauld saw Emory's wagon rumble to a halt just beyond the tavern, seeing a group of men in turbans and long flowing robes dismount. That made him think of the crusades, and the unlikely turn they had taken.  
The last to dismount was a woman. Severe. Harsh. Her hair was as red and as turbulent as wildfire, tied back into a long cascade. She wore what looked like a hardened leather dress, the hem ending in rags, cut and worn by hard travel. She held a cruel, bitten, rusted glaive as though she knew how to use it.  
For an moment, Reynauld thought she was glaring at him.

"Barbarians and saracens?" Ordgar wheezed beside him. Reynauld's visor hid his alarm. _How quietly does the sick bastard move?  
_  
"Both are worth a modicum of respect. They fight hard." Reynauld replied, his eyes flitting over Ordgar's dusty, bloody cloth and cuirass before returning to the recruits.

"Hard fighters deserve respect?" Ordgar murmured, "Then perhaps you should start by calling him 'Dismas'."

Reynauld rounded on Ordgar. The leper's eyes moved beneath the mask, but the rest of him was like stone.

"He was goodly enough to lead us down, and lead us home. He did the same for you, did he not?" Ordgar asked.  
Reynauld said nothing.  
Ordgar's glinting eyes returned to the recruits as mister Emory excitedly harassed them, his ravings carrying across the courtyard.

"Does she have an especial distaste for the afflicted?" Ordgar asked.

Reynauld was already moving, but he did notice that the woman was focusing her attention on Ordgar, the smallest of smiles pulling at that hard, lean face.  
In the end, Reynauld wouldn't get to drink. Mister Emory would blunder on into the tavern and bellow that 'the king is calling', silencing all the other patrons and their easy talk.  
Reynauld took Emory outside and shook him by the scruff until the message was understandable.

* * *

Reynauld found himself standing in a cramped, musty room in the blacksmith's building along with Dismas, Barristan, Ordgar and Junia. To a man, they were dishevelled, their clothes smeared with dust and blood. The highwayman's ire towards Reynauld had been replaced by his uneasiness in being the same room as Junia, and Barristan was similarly uncomfortable.  
Only Ordgar seemed free of distraction. Even the wounds and bruises he had suffered didn't seem to tire him. If anything, he stood taller for wearing those marks of battle on his body.  
Behind the desk was Fenton, his beard, as ever, immaculately trimmed and kempt, his grey hair combed back. His eye had been bandaged by Sabine's hands.  
"For approximately one month, we will be abandoning our excavations into the manor." He told them.

The silence grew. Reynauld saw an opportunity.  
"That was an impressive find, by Dismas," Reynauld nodded towards the highwayman, "but I doubt that will be sufficient for the growing number of treasure hunters flocking to our banner, ser."

"Of course not. Instead of striking inward, we will spread outward, and find what we need there. We have an infrastructure to rebuild and reconnect." Fenton said, smiling knowingly, "Once we have sufficient stores of gunpowder, we will certainly try the manor once more."

"Gunpowder?" Barristan croaked, his single remaining eye furrowing.

"The enemy knew we were coming, and could mass in great numbers. If we were to use gunpowder to breach our way into rooms within the manor, we will be able to get in, acquire what we seek, and escape before they can bring their full force to bear." Fenton told them.  
No-one argued.

"We have a few more things to address," Fenton decided, "an assassin tried their hand at slaying me whilst Dismas led his latest expedition. I need someone to assess the use of him in our expedition."  
Barristan pulled a face. "Drag a knife across his throat and be done with it. We've a hellish task as it is, trying to defend this undefendable place."

"I could speak with him." Junia piped up.

Fenton waved a hand her way. "My thanks, prioress. See if we can use him. As far as casualties go, I have tremendous good news," Fenton said, his smile widening, "Guido of Venice will require a week of extended care, but he will survive, according to Sabine, who is in rude health."  
There was no hurrah. Only two of the group knew who Sabine was, after all. Only Dismas seemed to show some spirit, whilst Junia permitted herself a weary smile.

"Dismas, I will want you to start integrating into the populace of this place. See if there's anyone who dislikes our presence here, anyone sympathetic to our cause. Barristan, I want you to take Reynauld and start teaching the townsfolk and your fellow adventurers the basics of formation fighting. I want a capable militia to watch our backs by the end of the month." He said at length, directing his gaze at each of them in turn.  
They murmured affirmatives and began to filter out when their departure was expected.

"Ordgar," Fenton arrested the leper's exit with a word, "I need someone to head an expedition down into the coves with the recruits. I have it on good information that my ancestor relied upon that network of caves to shelter all manner of treasures, using it as a storehouse and base of operations for his naval endeavours. Are you up to it?"  
Ordgar smiled a toothy, lesion-mottled grin in response.

* * *

Steiner, naked and cold, sat hunched in an especially deep grave. It had been an imaginative and effective tactic, and given the reputation of the Fenton family, he found it rather fitting. He gave them no satisfaction, no display of fear – how could he? – and what discomfort he felt, he could ignore for a while whilst he dug and repacked hand-holds in the earth, in case a mad climb for freedom was called for. For now, observed by inbred villagers and untrained militiamen, he sat, conserving his energy.  
"We slay the men who are wicked."  
Steiner's ears pricked up when he heard that phrase. Stirred from his ruminations, he could now hear the light footsteps moving through the grass.  
He looked up from the hole in the ground he had been left in, his piercing black eyes seeing the hooded priestess that hove into view, her robe reinforced with form fitting, soot-dulled battle plate. Her boots scuffed the earth, sending crumbs of dirt down onto Steiner's head.  
"You're the magician." He surmised.

"Excuse me?"

"Lightning leaps from your hands. Witchery."

"Faith." Junia said. "Who sent you to kill lord Fenton?"

Steiner shook his head. "I cannot say."

"Why not?"

"Part of what makes 'me', 'me'," Steiner decided, "is that I don't rat on employers."

"Why did you try to kill lord Fenton?"

There was a pause before Steiner spoke up. "Another villain to add to the list. Money, as well."

"Why do you kill?" Junia asked.

"I just said-"

"No, you didn't. Why do you kill?" Junia repeated the question.

Steiner looked up at her shadowed visage, at a loss for words. He contemplated lying.

"Good men want bad men dead. I'm good at killing. I need money to live." Steiner said, haltingly.

"Fenton's not a bad man. Who told you that?" Junia asked.

"I cannot say."

"For goodness sake-" Junia sighed, " _What_ did they say?"

"Bad things."

He could tell the prioress was growing impatient. "Elaborate."

"That he communes with the devil. He sews the skins of his people into his banners. He works to bring the denizens of hell onto this plain." Steiner picked out some of the highlights.

"That was Elias Fenton's legacy. Stuart Fenton – the man you went after – he strives to undo all of that."

That gave Steiner pause. "You're lying."

Junia leaned down, a sneer on her face. "Don't accuse me of lying, _mercenary._ Ever. Fenton managed to seal away the hordes of undead that would've made a necropolis of this hamlet – no thanks to you."

Steiner stared up at her, weighing up her words. "I was lied to." He said.

"Perhaps you were. By this employer that you seem so reluctant to give up."

"I cannot say."

Junia swore. "It's like getting blood from a stone with you."

That made the bounty hunter smile. Junia pursed her lips, her ice-blue eyes narrowing.

"If I let you out of there, will you behave? Fenton wishes to speak with you."

Steiner wanted to say those three words, but he relented. "Yes." He said. A rope was kicked through the grass, hanging into the grave.

"Know that I _will_ kill you, if you try anything." Junia warned.

 _You might try._ "I understand." Steiner said as he began his climb. He was thrown a cilice by the priestess, donning it without question as she walked him out of the graveyard.

"Are _you_ a bad man?" Junia asked over her shoulder.

Steiner thought about the question as he was led down one of the hamlet's winding streets.

"I cannot say."

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait! As always, feedback and criticism appreciated. Hope you enjoy the read.


	7. Chapter 7: Heir's Past

"This is folly! We must flee towards the sea! Their relief force-"

The pistol roared, and the hobelar was pitched back into the shadow of the ditch his comrades had been hiding behind. Their eyes were glued to the smoking barrel that now pointed towards them and the man who wielded it. It did not matter in that moment that the shot was spent and the powder was burnt – the terrible, piercing gaze of their employer cowed them all.

"To the ladder, or your families die." The gunman demanded. The remaining Welshmen pawed up the ditch and charged through the rain of arrows and bolts towards the abbey's walls, stalked by their driver.

"Do not give quarter, for none shall be given! Up!" Their employer cajoled them, his expression furious when he noticed that all of them were looking past him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw them. The French garrison, riders from Paris, here to break the siege.

"Sir, what should we do?" One of the hobelars asked. A bolt shot from a French crossbow thwacked into the grass by his feet, and he and his compatriots quickly huddled into the shade of the abbey's wall.

They watched as the French on the abbey's wall began to cheer at the sight of their reinforcements, who had come to a stop on the road. For a moment, the employer swore that the leading knight was looking at him.  
As expected, the knight motioned the relief column to turn about, to the confused shouting of the French above. The shouting gave way to roars of anguish when the defenders – civilians and priests – realised that they were being abandoned.  
The employer chuckled darkly as he drew his sword, pleased that his bribe had been taken seriously. It was one thing to pay a wartime adversary to stay where he was, but quite another to have him mount up and indulge in a play that would rob his true enemy of hope.

"The day is ours. Up the ladders, that we may take the spoils of war!" Stuart Fenton demanded, slapping the back of one of the Welshmen with the flat of his sword as they made their way up the ladder into the abbey of Saint Wandrille, to victory and death.

* * *

"I would very much like to see with two eyes now, doctor." He muttered as he sat on the stool in Sabine's room. With his chiselled jaw, lined face and his carefully groomed beard and combed back hair, he looked like a cultured and refined version of Barristan, right down to the eyepatch.

"I cannot promise that yet. It will need weeks to heal, and that's with the ointment. Off with the patch?"

Fenton obeyed as he removed the eyepatch, his handsome face occupied by a discomforted frown. His good eye stared at Sabine, her round and pleasant face obscured by her dumpy plague doctor regalia. His working eye's pupil was like black glass as the other stared at nothing, marbled by red, blossomed shapes.

"Keep it open?" Sabine said, her gloved finger smeared with a mint-green cream.

The pain lanced at him when his afflicted pupil met her finger. She had been gentle and ever so careful, but it nonetheless got a roaring growl out of him.

"Let it out, my lord, but do not rub at it. Bandages." Sabine spoke quickly as she raised the dressing, the visual cues enough to prevent Fenton from backing away or storming out. Instead he sat there, hissing breathes and mouthing curses as the plague doctor bandaged his eye.

"Your shoulder will not require further treatment, though if it worsens, do come see me." She said distractedly as she finished wrapping and tying off the linen.

"Thank you." He grated, before letting a shout break out of him that made Sabine jump.

"You're very brave." She told him, a meaningless platitude to Fenton's ear.

"There was more. The sack, that our last expedition brought back. What of it?" Fenton asked, his voice slurring as his eye throbbed with pain.

"It's Junia's head, yes. Disturbing, to be sure, but useful!" The plague doctor declared.

"How?" Fenton asked.

"What we have here is a replica of the brain of an individual who is fanatically loyal to the Light – the exact faith superseded by it matters not, but her ability to bring down… abnormal electrostatic discharge with such accuracy, that's… remarkable, to be sure. I feel we have much to learn from this find!"

Fenton looked on at her, a little disquieted by her child-like wonder when it came to the macabre. He himself was no stranger to death, having ordered good men to it and crushed life from beneath his two hands, but the almost infantile excitement she portrayed whenever there was talk of autopsy or vivisection… left him uneasy.

"So long as you don't show Junia your latest discoveries. The poor Prioress can barely hold it together-"

"Ah! Yes, I was thinking of indulging in a little aroma therapy – it is a little on the alternative side, far from orthodox, but it may be what's needed to put her humours-"

"You and her are alright, then?" Fenton interrupted her. That made Sabine stop for a moment, her beaked hood lowering a fraction.

"Well enough, monsieur." She said evenly.

That would be enough for Fenton. "Dismas will be leading an operation into the Weald. I daresay he will want a medic and botanist on hand whilst he scouts the road."

"That… would be fine, thank you, monsieur." Sabine spoke again, strangely guarded this time as he stood up from the stool and made to leave.

"Oh," He'd pause at the door, "Matron Helga Achterop of the Luxembourg lunatic asylum has now taken up residence in the sanitorium. If you should have need of medical supplies or instruments, do see her."  
With that, he would close the door behind him, not waiting for an answer.

* * *

"How is our new friend?"

Junia's hood turned, her blue eyes clapping on his as he closed the door into the dark and cobwebbed smith's workplace. She shook her head to the side, indicating the hunched figure who sat at the forge's extinguished hearth.

Fenton looked on at Junia for a moment longer, staring at that pretty face with its stoic expression. Unyielding and brave.

Then he caught the questioning, narrow eyed look Junia shot him before he straightened up and addressed their latest recruit.

"My shoulder aches and my eye is suffering from a pain most exquisite… Steiner, you told the prioress?"

"Mmm." The bounty hunter sounded, seemingly undisturbed by Fenton's discomfort as he slowly turned to meet him.

"She tells me you're not keen to tell me who sent you to kill me." Fenton said to him, his expression like stone.

The varangian helmet lifted, the eyeholes dark as the bounty hunter spoke to him. "I am not."

Fenton looked on at him, sizing him up, wondering what manner of coercion would be most effective on this one. Against his better judgement, he would try the direct approach.

"And you're suddenly less interested in killing me, is that it?" Fenton asked.

"You're the wrong man." Steiner replied.

A moment's silence settled between them.

"Are your skills for hire?" Fenton chanced, lofting a brow.

He swore he could see something glitter in those dark eyeholes. "Yes."

"Good. Report to the barracks." Fenton decided, concluding perhaps the simplest interview and business transaction he'd had to conduct.

"We have a barracks?" Junia asked.

"We do now, Prioress. Where do you think all that treasure has been going? Or did you think I would try to stem this tide of evil with ten good men?" Fenton asked.

Junia didn't have an answer, instead staring uncertainly at him.

"Junia, tell the blacksmith that we appreciate him lending us his rooms, but we need his craft now. Our war will require arms and armour up to the task." Fenton said, making his way out into the soft mud and murky sky of the town square, aware that Junia was moving after him.

"My lord Fenton," Junia stopped when Fenton's hand flew up to signal her silence.

"Listen. What do you hear?" He asked.

Junia's eyes looked about the courtyard as she strained her hearing. Before them both, the ironclad Reynauld and the wizened but broad-shouldered Barristan were moving through sets of strikes and counterstrikes, metal softly clanging on metal as they went through the movements at a speed the prospective militia could follow. Dull murmurs went about the crowd, ebbing away as Barristan gave his gruff instruction.

In the tavern across the way, laughter could be heard, and the thud of hammer on board resounded from the abbey.

"I hear work being done." Junia said.

"Yes, industry! Noisome, busy industry! That is music to the ears, compared to the silence punctuated by screams when we first came, wouldn't you say?" Fenton asked.

"…Yes, I would," Junia admitted, not to be dissuaded, "Now, about Steiner – is it wise to trust him, considering what he did to you? He came so close to killing you-"

"Just as you nearly let Sabine die, and yet here you are, being given another chance." Fenton said, his tone a little harder than was truly necessary.

"…Why do you do that?" Junia asked.

Fenton glanced back at her, her eyes shadowed by her hood and her head lowered. "What?"

"You snipe, threaten, put-down and damn. Do you think it's an effective way to manage people?" Junia qualified the statement, her voice reminiscent of a gathering storm.

"With the right people, it is." Fenton said, cursing himself as he spoke as though he'd been stung by her statement.

"You're asking a lot of these people, and of me. I've heard how you talk to Dismas." Junia added.

Fenton forced a laugh at that, "I have praised him for his leadership!"

"Not before you criticised him for failing to meet your ridiculous standards!" Junia fired back, her gaze averted as she pouted.

"…Was it Dismas, or Reynauld who told you about that?" Fenton asked.

"It doesn't matter. Either one of them saved my life when you weren't there. You're never there. Be kinder to them." Junia's voice grew harsh and she - as though sensing she was losing cohesion in her anger - turned stormed back into the blacksmith's building.

Fenton initially thought to pursue her, but thought better of it, instead walking out through the hamlet towards the cove. He stood before a pier that had been smashed in two, planks of wood and shivered beams lying in the murky waters. He clasped his hands behind his back noting a curious sensation crawl at his spine.

"We can't keep meeting like this. People will talk." He uttered.

"The world is not yet ready for our love." Dismas said as he emerged from the shadows behind him. Fenton had to chuckle as they faced one another.

"What news have you of the townsfolk?" He asked.

Dismas' red neckerchief didn't conceal the crow's feet at the sides of his eyes, though they faded in time as the highwayman made his report. "A messenger was paid a good deal of money to take a letter to Nuremburg, to a man by the name of Steiner – you familiar with the Hangman?"

 _Far too familiar._ "No, what of him?" Fenton lied.

"A bounty hunter, boss. A real bastard, too. Uses a hook, line, axe and a variety of tools to bring his mark down. Fought him myself, once. He always had something in store for the few times I -did- have the upper hand."

"Ah. Very good." Fenton said, mildly surprised at the coincidence.

"Yeah, so we'll want to put Reynauld guarding you, maybe Barristan too-"

"Oh, I believe I've found a way to neutralise the Hangman himself – tell me who hired him."

"Well, that's the thing, I spoke to the messenger, quick lad by the name of Jamie, and he told me that it was a waif called Abigail that gave him the letter."

"I don't suppose Jamie had the presence of mind to ask who he was delivering it for?" Fenton sighed.

"He did, actually, but the girl told him she was told not to tell." Dismas made a face beneath his scarf as a drop of rain struck his cheek. The two of them looked out towards the overcast sky.

"And Abigail herself?" _No, don't tell me._

"Missing. Likely dead, don't want loose ends kicking about, even if they are yea high," Dismas put his hand to his waist before continuing, "So I'm going to have a chat with Abigail's parents, her other tiny friends, work from there."

"My thanks, Dismas. Do what you can in the time you have – I may have work for you on the Old Road." Fenton told him, clapped the ex-bandit on the shoulder as he pressed on, making to move around the waterfront as the downpour began.

"Where will you be?" Dismas called after him.

"At the town hall, getting to grips with the parasites." Fenton threw the comment over his shoulder, the boom of thunder punctuating his sentiment as he disappeared into the veil of rain.

* * *

When he had approached the artefact, the abbot had begged him to call off his men, to leave this place and not desecrate it further.

Fenton had no interest in listening to the pleading of deluded men. He had rammed his sword to the hilt through the old man's mouth. He let the man fall, dragging his blade free before demanding the few men who had neglected the rape of the abbey set to work opening the artefact. They tried and failed, the white-stone coffin seemingly sealed shut. Before long, their employer's voice was bellowing out for hammers, competing with the shrieking sobs of the nuns and the dying screams of the abbey's last defenders.

Two of his hobelars answered, exultant and swaggering as they brought their hammers in. They approached the ornate sarcophagi, the stone and gold replete with the devotional iconography of the church and the Light both. Without much quarrel, they brought their hammers down, again and again, chipping and warping the metal-  
Until they forced a break in the mighty stone lid, and the lit candles in the crypt and church were all guttered out together by an unnatural gale that howled through the abbey.  
Every little hair on Fenton's body stood up, his eyes hunting for their assailant.

 _ **An iconoclast, a slaver and a murderer walks into an abbey…  
**_  
"Show yourself!" Stuart bellowed, his skin painted a golden-red by the firelight outside.

 _ **If I were capable, I would. It would make all this easier.  
**_  
"Who are you, you bastard?! Show yourself!" Stuart snarled, his sword everywhere at once. His hobelars nervously followed his lead, spears and short swords brandished as they explored the darkness.

 _ **I am Elias, young Stuart.**_

That made Fenton's eyes widen. "How-"

 _ **You are frightening your hired muscle. Do not speak aloud.**_

 _How are you speaking to me like this? Where are you?_ _ **  
**_  
 _ **I am on my way to hell, Stuart. I'm afraid that it is your fate to join me in this place.**_  
 _  
What? What have you done? What have you promised?_

 _ **I promised you as a blood price – among other things – in exchange for arcane knowledge – secrets normally beyond mortal ken.**_

That gave Fenton pause. _What good is there in telling me?_

 _ **I suppose being dead leaves one weak to attacks of conscience. I have done terrible things to you, my subjects, and if nothing is done, civilisation itself. My sins are innumerable, and my sentence is a dire one. Beneath the hamlet is a pit, a gateway to a place that should not exist, a place of esoteric truths and things that have no right to live; and I was the one to turn the key.**_

 _What would you have me do, grandfather?_

 _ **The letter is on its way. The scale of the problem is outlined in detail there. Find men and women of quality whilst you wait for its arrival – you will need staunch souls to brave the darkness and reclaim your own.**_

 _ **There -is- another thing you can do right now.**_

Fenton stood there, immobile, watching as his men returned to him, bemused as they turned up empty handed.

 _ **You led these island savages here, to an abbey of the Light. You desecrated and defiled its relics and its servants, both of which might stem the tide of evil that rises from beneath – all for a king's war you feel nothing for.  
Stop the sack now, that France might survive the encroaching darkness.**_

Fenton looked on, incredulous for a moment. _This is how the going of the mind starts, is it?_

"Boss?" One of the hammer wielding hobelars asked, "What's to be done about the coffin? Do we set to exhumin'?"

Fenton's expression hardened as his men, so satisfied and so trusting, closed around him.

Fenton's hand slid past the pommel to close on the grip of his sword.

 _If nothing else, it means I'm not going to have to pay them.  
_  
And so Fenton indulged his madness that night.

* * *

The door to the ramshackle townhall opened, the light inside spilling onto his face as the bent over shape of mister Emory gave him reprieve from the illumination.

"Master, you're late! The people, they wait!" The crazed old man declared, his eyes inscrutable behind those ruined round glasses.

Stuart Fenton, his skin shining, his hair slick and his clothes damp with rainwater, gave the caretaker a tired smile.

"Yes, I thought." Fenton agreed, shaking off the damp as he made his way indoors, preparing himself for the next battle.

* * *

 **Author's note** : It's been such a long time. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting. Hope you enjoy.


	8. Chapter 8: Battle on the Old Road

Nolyn sat slumped against the wooden bench, gritting his teeth as the aged wheels shook and clattered, stumbling into and out of potholes and rolling over root and rock. Every jerk of the ancient wagon irritated him, every lurch left him tightening his hold on shawl and chain. He tried not to be self-conscious, not when the gangling Cheney hoisted himself out of the wagon with a mumbled excuse about fresh air, or when the wiry Vauquelin had simply indulged in cruel verbal jabs at his expense before sitting beside the driver. Only one person had the audacity to remain beneath the canvased bonnet of the wagon and endure his furtive glances.

"Do I worry you?" She asked.

It took him a moment to answer. "Yes." He croaked. He coughed to clear his throat. He tried not to think about the way his pulse quickened, the headaches, the whispery groans and the chorus of murmured threats and promises that throbbed behind his eyes.

"Because I'm a woman?" A smile appeared on her oval face.  
The preposterous question stilled the voices for a moment.

"No, no." Nolyn laughed in spite of the situation, his eyebrows knitted as he looked her in the eye.

Her lovely smile softened beneath the hood. "Is it the robes I wear?" She added.  
Nolyn held her gaze, his teeth worrying the inside of his lip, remembering the bellows and roars of outrage, the fire, the hunt. Far too often, a man bearing the sigil of the hollow cross had led the wayward sheep.

"…Yes." He admitted.

"Would it please you if I were to disrobe, then?" She asked.

Nolyn felt his face flush when she flashed that playful smile his way. His eyes left her face, shaking his head, flustered and frustrated. He was paranoid, that was all, and as he caught himself letting his eyes flit over the form fitting breastplate, he grew flustered at the thought of closeness. Of heat and urgency. He forced himself to stare at his bare feet.

"…I'm a sister of St. Martha's. It is my calling to safeguard the lost, not condemn them," She said finally, "So please, do not be troubled by my affiliation."  
Her words were like a balm to him, and he wished he was not so transparent. He prayed that his discomfort was all she saw, chalking it up to nerves of the journey, or the company of a woman. He shut his eyes.

"Are you-"  
Nolyn nodded his head, exhaling shakily as his eyes opened. He dared to smile. "I'm sorry, I'm – I don't-"  
The daughter of the Light waved a gloved hand for him to continue. He nodded awkwardly as he continued.

"I don't normally get along with people." He managed as he stared at his manacled right hand, "I find myself saying, or doing the wrong thing."  
Her smile faltered for a moment, her eyes reading his face.

"You haven't said anything wrong to me, though." She decided.  
Nolyn smiled back at that.

"I'm sister Mariah. What do I call you?" She asked.

"I'm-"

 _Being watched?_  
Nolyn's expression deepened into a wild-eyed scowl, causing Mariah's eyes to widen.

"What's wrong?" She only spoke when Nolyn turned from her, his manacled hands clamping on the rear facing side of the wagon bed, scrutinising the trees on the edge of the dying forest that loomed above the Old Road they travelled on.  
He swore he saw a shape. He could've _sworn…_ but then, the thing within him jumped at any shadow.

"Nothing's wrong." Nolyn decided, forcing himself to return to the bench, and for a few minutes more spent time with a pretty woman who smiled and talked with him.

* * *

Cutter's legs burnt as he ran through the blighted brush, doing his best to keep his weapon between himself and physical contact with the wilting thickets of their sickly sanctuary. He had given up trying to keep his neckerchief over his face – the urgency of his discovery was worth the threat to his health. He shouldered past the 'shroom mottled copse, diving on through rotting foliage, wiping his face ferociously as he staggered in amongst a handful of his comrades. They were in varying stages of undress and activity – Bludger was exercising his infected shoulder as Rike was prying teeth from the head of a carpenter who had wandered too far into their territory. Bones and Smith rolled dice on an upturned bucket, marred with mould.  
They were all looking at him as he shambled between them towards their leader.  
Rather than the green hoods of the Wolves, Petrus de Sauvage wore a braided jade headband over a mail coif. He was also exceptional in that he was clean shaven and well built – more testament to his preference to take the lion's share of any food their band found - and lounged on a tree trunk that had been roughly hewn and carved to resemble the beginnings of some rudimentary throne.  
Cutter slipped to one knee, almost overbalancing as his leader relaxed before him.

"Boss, prey!"

"Where?" The disgraced knight asked, his voice uncaring and aloof.

"The Old Road." Cutter reported.

"How many wagons?" Petrus murmured.

"Two. One with guards, the other with packs, barrels. Food, perhaps?" Cutter tried to flesh out his report, but he had seen little – he had very nearly been discovered by one of the keener eyed travellers that moved with the convoy.

"Hardly seems worth it." Petrus muttered.

"Should we inform him?" Cutter asked.

"No, no, I think not." Petrus said airily. Cutter said nothing, knowing how the Great Wolf would feel about his subordinates questioning their newfound obligation.

He heard mail clink and leather creak, rising and stepping back to see Petrus getting to his feet.

"Time for the wolves to feast. Up! We go!" Petrus snarled at his warband.

* * *

"…And naturally, if we were to prioritize the Yellow Hand above that of the cartographers and the tremendous contributions they could provide to the navigation issues that our expeditions could run into, we would not only lose the latter's benefits – and that is, smoother transit into and out of compromised domains surrounding our hamlet, escape routes as well as a detailed understanding of routes previously explored – but we would also be encouraging a… certain, criminal element to flourish in this hamlet, and any threat on public order-"

The aged cartographer by the name of Fernand was cut off, along with the droning, grey-faced interpreter, who reluctantly set to serving the new speaker.

"I don't recall you all complaining about a 'certain criminal element' before," said Blasia, a mannish, rosy cheeked woman in corset, cloak and leggings with an array of pouches decorating her body, "When the militia were slaughtered to a man, it was my boys and girls who kept watch, kept you safe for a year and a half whilst our absent master – ah. Pardon, my lord." That same plain face lost some of its colour. Luckily for her, the lord was only half listening, instead working through the list of functionaries and representatives sitting and standing around the table, trying to put names to faces as they waited tentatively for his displeasure – as well as his answer in regards to where his money would be going first.

 _Antoine, priest of the abbey, hangdog and robed. Blasia, thieves' guild, mannish face and dressed to kill. Fernand of the cartographers, puffy clothing and keen of his own voice. Gernot, blacksmith, pipe and old. Geoff Hartford, banker, balding and bored. Matron Achterop, as beautiful and as cold as a knife, Tomislava the guildmaster's wife, physically fit and pleasing to look at, Francis representing the leper colonies and outer communities, hooded and masked, John the miller's boy, captain Rowland, Susan Nash the mistress of stores, so many of them. Even mister Easton, a puppeteer, of all things…  
_ Stuart Fenton's thumb traced a shape in the dusted surface of the table, chastising himself for thinking less of such a vocation – given the hamlet's location and its adversities, anything that could boost morale of civilian and soldier could not be ignored.

Neither could the sea of expectant faces around the table, not any longer. Fenton's tired gaze met the eyes of a handful of them as he gathered himself to speak – Blasia averted her gaze whilst Gernot's pipe clacked between his teeth as he readjusted.

"What did you keep the hamlet safe from, miss Blasia?" He asked finally, his attention switching back to the thief mistress. She blanched.

"…We've…" She started, though her hesitation was enough to force Fenton to put a hand up before he lost his temper.

"We are here to have a civil discussion about the problems that hamper the stability and safety of the hamlet, and how we might go about solving those problems," Fenton reminded her, "I'm afraid I was ignorant of the woes inflicted on you by my grandfather, and far removed waging war in France.  
So please, Blasia, get me up to speed. What have you and yours had to waylay?"

Fenton wasn't sure how to feel when the crowd in front of him visibly relaxed. They had expected him to take it as criticism. He was affronted that they would assume him the man to do that. It told him the prioress had a point. Though, he was gladdened that he had soothed their concerns – and curious. Had his grandfather threatened them with death or some other punitive measure?  
Or had he more esoteric means of establishing his dominance? Of making an example to the populace?

"To captain Rowland's credit," Blasia would nod at Rowland, "He was the leader of the town watch, before it became necessary for the Yellow Hand to step forward."

Fenton looked over Rowland carefully. The man couldn't be past forty and yet his body was withered and gnarled. Fenton had seen how Rowland had staggered when they had brushed shoulders on the way in, and a glance downward had revealed the peg leg that Rowland relied on to move around. Rowland's expression was one of bitter sullenness, replaced for a second only by a flash of gratitude at Blasia before he began to speak.

"We have so far endured attacks on four fronts," Rowland leant awkwardly on the table as his neighbours gave way, "From the ruins, the surrounding weald, the foetid tunnel that we refer to as 'the warrens', and the cove, that you've already sent Ordgar to scout out."

Fenton lofted a brow, impressed at Rowland's diligence, wondering how he knew the names of his warriors so quickly. "Yes, I did. What of the Weald?" Fenton asked.

"…The brigand brigade, the name that your grandfather later dubbed his enforcers, are the most dangerous. We could hold off the cultists and… and the things from other places in good order, but after the cannonade…"

"Cannonade?" Fenton repeated.

"T-they made like they were going to attack the town again. We formed up, and that's when- t-then the cannons opened up and…"

Fenton could see the faraway look in Rowland's eyes, and as the old soldier's jaw worked to try to go on, he slowly realised a public forum was not a suitable place for the scarred veteran. "Matron?"

As Rowland was gently led away through the parting crowd by matron Achterop, Fenton turned his attentions towards Blasia.  
"Why did my grandfather think to employ cannon on townsfolk?" He asked her.

"Elias'… unhealthy fascination with the occult made it clear to us that we were at risk, so we started demonstrating in the town square. More of our young joined the town watch. Guess we gave him too good a show of strength." Blasia said.

"Was that wise? Why did you do it, why did you not leave?" Fenton asked.

"There was nowhere else to go – besides, the Weald was far too dangerous to traverse since the Hag's coven took root there." Blasia's report left Fenton lofting a brow at the mention of a Hag and a coven.

"We had to protect ourselves, after they started taking our men and women." A voice in the back of the crowd piped up.

"Make yourself known." Fenton commanded. This time, the crowd did not make way for the speaker. Fenton sensed an undercurrent of hostility, though to his surprise it was not aimed at him.

"Come here. I demand it." Fenton called.

"The brigands, they've an appetite –" Blasia started.

"No, I'm not talking to you anymore." Fenton snapped, swearing he could smell a secret. He cast his discerning eye in the direction of the earlier speaker.

It was Susan Nash, the store mistress. For someone with access to the remains of the hamlet's granaries, she was a gaunt, thin woman in her forties. She stood as though determined to hold onto a shred of grace and dignity, despite the intense way the other functionaries looked at her.

"Who are you talking about?" Fenton asked her.

As Susan Nash opened her mouth, voices filled the air, her detractors and her apparent supporters suddenly waging war, the banker, the thief mistress and the miller's boy shouting her down as the outsider, the puppeteer and the guildmaster's wife railed at them.  
"Please my lord, she's not right in the head –"  
"Let her speak, let her drag it all into the daylight!"  
"They don't exist, there's no need to bother the lord with such details-"  
"Do you see!? Do you see what your complicity has done?!"  
"They're naught but pests-"

Fenton's pistol roared, causing the people all around to recoil and cry out. The timber beam above the table creaked as it accommodated the embedded pistol ball. The gun smoke lingered above the table as Fenton gestured through it for Susan to speak her piece.  
As an afterthought, mister Emory staggered to Fenton's shoulder, another flintlock pistol rattling on the silver plate he served it on. Bemused, Fenton took it.

"The creatures that have grown in the cove, they've an interest in young women, since the mudlark."

"Creatures?" Fenton tasted the word, tilting his head and giving Susan a look that implied it was in her best interest to continue.

"…We came to an arrangement."

Fenton could sense a dark mood on the approach as he waited for tha-that if we gave them a girl once every three months, t-t-they'd leave us well enough alone."

* * *

 _What dangers face us?_

Alhazred Ibn Asim shut his eyes tight as the overlapping laughter rippled through his head, the very sound making him want to recoil and withdraw from this commune. For a moment, he thought he could hear the house groaning, as though it were being twisted from its foundations by an invisible force.

Alhazred was a slight man in a robe bedecked with bundled scrolls, bags and colourful potions, his face narrow and sleek. The hair on his head was black and concealed behind a dust coloured turban, his moustache and beard kept trimmed and short. His hands clutched his mentor's skull, cracked and worn, which was topped with a candle veined by wax that had run and reset along its column.

He sighed, recognising that it had been a stupid question – and it was folly to waste his patron's time with more of those.

"Y-stell'bsna ee. Shtunggli phlegeth." Alhazred knew many languages, but this one physically hurt him to think it, and to speak it… Even though he only spoke the fundaments as he knew them, he got the instinctive feeling that the words were not meant for mortal mouths.

He received no answer, but not for lack of trying. He could hear the disturbance in the natural way of things. A creaking in reality, a brewing storm beyond, as though the _thing_ was aggravated…  
It would not do. Alhazred needed his answer. The acolytes that formed his wyrd council were an asset he wanted to safeguard, and he himself was fond of living.  
Besides, the moment you exposed yourself as a weakling before that which you have summoned, they will engineer your downfall all the quicker.

 _"_ Y-stell'bsna ee. Shtunggli phlegeth.. _."_ Alhazred hissed, the words of power underlined by the taste of copper. He heard something snap within him as the world seemed to groan, then murmur, then roar. He held one hand to the side of his head. He felt his gorge rise, his eyes strain, and the sound was deafening.  
Something was coming…

* * *

"One girl every three months." Fenton repeated Nash's words. He spoke slowly and deliberately as he looked at the crowd. Most failed to meet his gaze. _  
My god, you people._  
"Say what you might about the method, it kept us alive." Hartford the banker said coldly, no longer so bored.

"Mmhmm," Fenton sounded, "tell me what other tithes you pay to the besiegers." He fired the question to Hartford.

"Up until six months ago, we've been having to send a warm body down into the tunnels every week."  
Fenton's finger curled on the pistol's trigger, feeling an irrational desire to point, fire and knock the banker down. To shout and scream at these spineless pissants. He recognised that they had done what they could in an impossible position, but he believed anyone could have done better; why, if _he_ had been there, he would've stopped this madness dead.

"For what purpose, I wonder?" Fenton mused aloud, opening his mouth to follow that question-

The windows blasted inwards as something howled, glass showering the backs of the crowded room, leaving the womenfolk screaming as all of them ducked and hit the floor. Fenton was knocked back in his chair whilst the caretaker shrieked as he fled into the backroom.

Fenton was the first to rise from the table, his expression like that of dark thunder as he strode through the huddled mass to the door, brandishing the pistol with an intention to use it.

He saw Barristan and the militia staggering together, weapons held at the ready as the townsfolk fled towards their homes or towards the formation. Reynauld's blade was held pointed at one particular house whose glass hadn't been blown inwards but instead been fired into the town square's mud, the shards and flecks of glass forming a rough, serpentine outline on the ground.  
In the startled lull, that particular house's door opened, and the scholar from the east staggered out, his expression dazed.  
He said nothing, only pointing along the glittering glass mosaic that now pointed towards the Old Road.

In the distance, a sound like thunder boomed.

* * *

The cannonball had struck the horses. It had blasted through the flank of the first, its corpse following the missile as it broke the rear legs of the other. The last horse, out of its mind with terror and pain, now thrashed in the ditch that it had been rammed into, along with the upturned wagon.

Nolyn hadn't known what had hit them.  
He hadn't heard Cheney speak more than two words to him, either, but as his hearing returned to him, he heard how he sounded in his moment of dying.  
Nolyn huffed as he failed to move the wagon wheel that had his arm pinned, panic turning to anger as he saw men slipping down the Old Road's escarpment. Far too many. Some of them were laughing, others calling out for death and loot, and some howled like wolves.  
Nolyn wanted them to stop howling. He could hear it respond in like kind.  
He gave pause in his exertions when his vision was blocked by the long robe of the daughter of the Light.  
 _No. No._  
The growl that broke out of his throat was something more and less than human as he heaved at the wheel. It earnt him a glance from Mariah. Her expression was one of tight control over her fear.

"Back, ye sinners!" Mariah intoned, turning on the first brigand who reached for her with groping fingers. He had expected the spoils of a defeated woman, and so a fight was the last thing on his mind.  
Her gloved fingers grasped at his face, and immediately his hands flew to her wrist as he started to scream. Steam rose off of his face as her fingers glowed with the brilliance of the Light.  
The closest bandit closed to deal with her, whilst the rest paused in their looting, observing this token resistance with interest.  
Another brigand rushed to help his maimed friend, awkwardly striking around his comrade. Mariah's hand burnt hotter now as it smashed down like a hammer on his nose. The two brigands fell back, literally in the second man's case as she raised that terrible hand to the rest of the band, muttering some prayer that Nolyn didn't hear.  
Then he heard a blunderbuss roar, and Nolyn curled into his shoulder to try to shield himself with the wagon. Nails, coins and other grapeshot bounced and broke the surface wood of his cover, but he was spared.  
Spared by the silhouette of the now lurching Mariah.

"No!" Nolyn screamed with two voices now, the anxiety and terror of imminent death replaced with something different, something wicked.  
Her torn hood turned to regard him, wide eyed, her teeth gritted. Her cuirass had protected the middle of her, but her pretty face with the kind smile…  
As though by rote, one of her shaking hands went to the tome at her waist, and her mouth haltingly began to mumble a passage.

"Get clear!" Nolyn shouted, feeling more of the thing beneath the flesh roaring, exultant as he began to yield his control of it. More of the bandits approached now. She meekly raised a hand, as though asking them to defer, to let her finish her chant. The one that reached her first kicked her in the stomach, knocking her flat in the dirt and driving an explosive gasp from her.

"Jesu…" Nolyn heard her whisper. Nolyn strangled a growl in his throat as he tried to claw away the mud beneath him, give him a furrow to crawl through. He felt a lancing pain push up through his fingertips and felt his muscles begin to convulse. As he grew light headed, he looked up frantically as one of the outlaws went over to the supine Maria, already setting to unbuckling his belt.

"Now now, there will be none of that." Came a well-spoken voice, accented in French. The fiddling outlaw, sneering and hungry-eyed, glanced over his shoulder at his approaching leader – one of the only bandits wearing chainmail, who carried himself as though he were some lord.

"Fuck off, Petrus." He snarled as he finished undoing his belt.

Nolyn was fixated on the bandit set on violating the sister of battle, and so was taken surprise by the Frenchman's reaction.  
A mailed hand seized the man by hood and hair, the rest of the man going rigid and his mouth crying out as the Frenchman repeatedly shanked him. When he saw the would-be rapist go down, Nolyn got a good look of this 'Petrus', and the haughty rage that made his face tight and his eyes wild. After the eighth stab, the murderous Petrus swung the dying bandit awkwardly to face him.  
"This is _my_ pack, not Vvulf's! Do you understand!? _Do you understand, you whoreson knave?!"_

He stared down into Snipes' astonished expression, his own teeth bared.

"Nod, you cur!"

Snipes, blood dribbling down his chin and the light in his eyes fading, nodded.

"Does anyone else not understand?! Who is in command?!" Petrus de Sauvage let Snipes slip from his grip onto the ground as he raged, rounding on the rest of his surrounding men. None of them, not even the belligerent and gargantuan Bludger, dared meet his gaze.

"Right… right…" He snarled, storming towards the vestal's body, even as she clutched at the wound. He saw the way the light grew beneath her hands, but he doubted she had long left – a bolt to the gut was a sure way to kill most people, magical powers or none. It would only be fair to be merciful, she was a creature of the church – and besides, he had never liked Snipes. Not even slightly. In a way, he was grateful to the woman for providing him with a pretext to end the insubordinate little shit's life.

"I would hear your name, before I make your passing swift."

"M-Mariah, of the order of the Burning Lady."

"Hail, and well met. I am Petrus de-"

"You're a brigand. I don't n-need such a name." Mariah managed.

Petrus de Sauvage felt his choler rise once again, the point of his short sword lowering towards Mariah's chest, preparing to make that decisive thrust that would end the girl's life.

"Your first is in dog, but not in hog!" The sound of a plucked lute string accompanied the warbling, wavering voice that intruded upon the tense silence. Petrus' directed his ireful gaze towards the source of the sound – the upturned wagon.

"Your second is in time, but not in rhyme." The plucking continued even as the survivor from the crash stepped around the front of the cart, jingling as he went. He was clad in patchwork hose, the tipped collar red and yellow. He wore a jester's hood, his face hidden by a white cloth hood that left no opening for his mouth, his eyes shadowed by the angle of his brows.

"Who in all-" Petrus began to say, but as soon as he began to speak, the fool strummed the strings vigorously, as though irked by the interruption. Petrus held his tongue, his anger forgotten as this strange survivor painted himself a target before two dozen bandits, who even now trained their collection of bows and black powder guns on him.

"Your last is in lie, but not in sty." The clown said as he ceased his strumming. Bowstrings went taut as Petrus' archers anticipated his fatal command.

"What will you do now?" The jester asked, his brow furrowing beneath the cloth as he fingered the lute strings.

"Die?" One of the bandits asked, an unloaded blunderbuss in his hands.

"Ding," The jester exclaimed, playing the participating member of his audience an uplifting chord, "We have a winner." He continued to play an idle, whimsical piece.

"You're a madman." Petrus said matter-of-factly.

"You think that's mad? Look behind you!" The jester cackled.

Petrus gave him a look of sheer disdain before he glanced backwards.  
As soon as his eyes met the _thing_ , it roared. It roared so damn loud.

"Oh, Christ!" One man screamed before the killing started. The men scattered, but the thing was faster. Its bone yellow claws were tipped red as it raked at their backs, and the screams of panic filled the air. The thing stole the breath from Petrus' lungs.  
Its gleaming eyes shone with a malevolent intelligence. Its ruddy skin was packed with potent muscle, the veins marbling its flesh a rotten jade colour. Its goat-like head with its long black horns turned this way and that, its fanged mouth emanating a low, throaty growl.  
It still wore the manacles of the prisoner on its hands.

"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!" The jester crowed, an edge of fear in his voice as he began to play a dark, energetic piece.

The thing bellowed, and set itself upon the brigands.  
Petrus rounded on the jester with his sword pommel, catching the jester on the shoulder. The fool turned on one foot and-  
Petrus blocked frantically as a hand scythe whistled down, but he had expected straight steel. The point dug into his shoulder as he levered the jester off of him, a warding strike forcing the jester to dance away.

"Jack be nimble, jack be quick!" The jester chuckled. His lute was gone, forgotten, a dirk in his other hand as he harried Petrus, as the knight's warband faced the horror from beneath the wagon.

Nolyn roared in vengeful fury as he carved through them. One of the marksmen trained a crossbow on him, but he was slow, far too slow. Nolyn charged forward, his head lowering and rising hard. The marksman screamed as the bolt went wide and his body was lifted into the air, hanging off of one of the bloody horns as Nolyn raged through the bandits like a wolf amongst sheep.

"Bludger! Hold off on that pistol! Rike, spear the bastard!" Cutter held his nerve, grabbing Cheney's shield as he rushed forward to front the beast.  
The monster that had been Nolyn bellowed at him before his claws sliced down at him. Cutter expertly brought the dead man's shield up, his arms going dead as he stopped the blow. Rike stepped in and thrusted hard.  
The beast gave off a confused grunt of pain. Taken off-guard, it prepared to strike down at the spear shaft.

"Now, Bludger!" Cutter screamed, casting a frantic glance under his hood at their bruiser.  
In time to see the hook whistle down from the sky and plunge into the big man's shoulder.

"Ungh..." Bludger managed, wheeling about when the line was tugged savagely, one of his paws going to the line, intent on seizing the cretin that had hurt him with his bulging muscles.

The last thing Bludger would see would be the Widowmaker, spinning end over end towards his face.

* * *

Reynauld could hear the bounty hunter's noise of contentment as he rushed down the escarpment towards the fight. He saw the bandits near the wagon fleeing before the assault of the monster, and one of their finer swordsmen being frustrated by what looked like a court's fool.  
He headed towards the latter, crying out a warning as he advanced into the fight. The jester gratefully fell back.

"You," The brigand knight crossed swords with Reynauld before rolling a stab from the jester, "You will know why I am known as Petrus de Sauvage!"

Reynauld, a knight of the last crusade, let his longsword speak for him, hammering Petrus de Sauvage across the road.

* * *

Cutter cried out as the beast's paws powered upwards, lifting Cutter into the air and several meters away. Cutter landed painfully in the scree, the shield splintered by the monstrous blow. He heard blood curdled screams, and cried out in disgust and alarm as Rike's head struck his shoulder, splashing him in hot blood. He cursed, seizing his two-handed sword. He had to regroup the others, get the loot into the woods. If they worked together they could-  
They could-  
He felt a wave of something cold and terrible wash over him. The warmth of blood, the heat of combat, the presence of mind to save his comrades, such as they were… all of that deserted him.  
He numbly, dumbly looked around him for the source of this sudden cold, and that's when he saw it.  
The flame that flickered at the tip of the candle danced, as red as rage. The hollows of the skull glowed that same angry hue, and the man who watched him…  
He was a dusky skinned man in a robe, his hair wrapped in a turban. His black eyes never quite met Cutter's, encompassing him but never focusing.  
The bandit had never felt so alone. Surrounded by his friends, a dozen at least, in the Weald where he hunted his prey on a daily basis, he still felt as though he was surrounded on alien ground.  
He could feel darkness and death coiling around them, slithering, feeling, waiting.

"Run," Alhazred grinned with the relieved smile of a man who had finally secured his collector's due, "Hurry now, for there is misfortune written in your stars."

Cutter tossed his weapon and obeyed.  
The screams made him run all the harder.

* * *

"God in hell!" Reynauld exclaimed, feeling fear prick him as a tentacle as wide as he was tall smashed down between himself and Petrus. He stepped back, checking around himself frantically as snake like appendages seemed to emerge from the fabric of reality, glowing bright and moving fast across the battlefield.  
He watched in numbing horror as the bandits were set upon by these tentacles. Some were smashed into the ditches or into trees by violent sweeps of these limbs, whilst some were grasped, squeezed, and blown open by the crushing pressure.  
Reynauld stepped in to strike at one of the tentacles whilst it was busy, making a great cut in it that oozed shining blood before he heard the Saracen scream at him to stop.

"It won't hurt you, not unless you hurt it!" He cried.

The eldritch tentacle was already moving, violently flexing to knock Reynauld groundward.  
Reynauld struggled to right himself, taking the brightly garbed hand when it was offered, standing clear of the thrashing arm of the eldritch horror. The knight and the jester readied their weapons as they backed from the weeping tentacle as it thrashed up the dust, the other limbs lashing after them.

"Y-HRII!"

The onrush of tentacles halted when that ugly noise left Alhazred's lips. For a long time, nothing happened, and Reynauld feared he would have to outfight the thing that these appendages belonged to.  
Then, sullenly, they began to retreat; slipping away into hazy openings just beyond sight and sense. Its brothers followed it, some still holding the human brigands. Some of them were still alive – alive and screaming as they disappeared.  
Those brigands that had survived were even now fleeing into the woods, their terror giving them wings. The remains of the wagon were strewn across the road, as were its occupants and guards. When nothing stirred from the treeline, Reynauld dug the tip of his sword into the ground, shaking as he crashed to one knee, his gauntlets clinking about the handle.

"Lord, thank You for the victory that is mine through my survival this day." He stammered out the words, his eyes squeezed shut behind the visor of his helmet, He listened, and once more, heard nothing.  
He felt absurd. Absurd and afraid. He pushed himself back up to his feet with a clatter of plate, feeling a presence at his back.  
To his disappointment, it was Steiner, who offered him a fist as he passed him.  
Reynauld nearly missed it with his own hand, letting the bounty hunter walk towards the wreckage as his eyes saw the gathered throng on the road.  
Barristan led the way, the one-eyed man-at-arms holding his maul low and his shield at the ready. Behind him was his militia – men and women from all walks of life and all sorts of professions. Reynauld saw somewhere in the crowd a haggard gentleman in a bloodied butcher's frock, side by side with the painted face and short-cut dress of one of Thames' girls, both holding spears at the ready. A lumberjack here, a hunter there, a cobbler, a baker, a beggar…  
"The battle's done before we could arrive, hmm?" Barristan called. Reynauld could see relief and disappointment in various faces behind the aged soldier.

"'Tis." Reynauld managed. Barristan nodded before rounding and issuing commands to a handful of his subordinates.

"Robine, establish a cordon. Raise the hue and cry should enemies appear – Ferrant! Get your indolent sons of mothers to the wagons. See what was stolen and have Humfroy see to the wounded. Mahi? Run back to the hamlet and tell lord Fenton what's occurred here. We have need of transport for the goods, but they are secured."  
The villagers each left when they had their orders, bellowing to their mobs. Reynauld watched them go, quietly impressed with how quickly the man-at-arms had formed the militia. It was still a pitiable rabble of peasants, but they understood the concepts of an established perimeter, the hierarchy of command, the importance of moving with your brothers.

"Who's this fellow?" Barristan asked.

"I am Vauquelin, court jester, troubadour and adventurer." Reynauld realised the gangly man in the fool's garb was leaning around him, his fingers resting on the plate of Reynauld's arm.  
Reynauld shook him off before raising a fist to him. Vauquelin chuckled as he held his hands up in surrender.

"In whose court did you serve?" Barristan asked.

"Oh, that doesn't matter, not anymore." Vauquelin simpered.

"That's up to me to decide, boy," Barristan rumbled, "Unless you'd take your chances back the way you came."

"Peace, Barristan," Reynauld spoke up, "He helped me fight off the foemen. I think we could use him."

Barristan looked at Reynauld with an incredulous look. For an instant, Reynauld feared that Barristan might suddenly be regarding himself as someone of some importance, after drilling a unit that informally answered to him.  
In the background, Vauquelin had dusted off his lute and was in the process of letting his fingers dance idly along the strings.

" _How_ , ser?" Barristan asked, as he indicated the jester as he played. That made Reynauld smile.

"He did not run. He brought steel, as well."

The jester drummed the lute as though to punctuate the point.

"Right, well, I suppose it'll be up to our employer." Barristan said. The jester cocked his head to one side, the bells that hung from his hood jingling.  
"And who might he be?"

* * *

In the end, Mahi managed to make it back with a few more men and a couple of carts, allowing the militia to load up and return to the hamlet. There had been no saving the horses.  
The driver and the guard had died quickly enough, as had an old, gangly soldier by the name of Cheney.  
A sister of battle, her name unknown and her face unrecognisable, had died of her wounds.  
Besides Vauquelin, there was one other survivor. He was compact, lean, wrapped in a shawl, his arms and legs decorated by broken chains and manacles.

The loss of life was regrettable, but that could be replaced. The provisions stolen were a loss, but they could be grown or purchased.

The most worrying aspect of Barristan's report was about the barrels of gunpowder and incendiary devices that Fenton had ordered from London.

"One is missing." Barristan told him, outside the town hall. From the town square, the gentle rustle of broom bristles combing up glass could be heard.

Stuart Fenton, dismayed, rested a hand on his mouth as he shook his head, his back against a pillar of the town hall. "And Steiner could not find them?"

"Reynauld – we thought it best to secure the cargo, lest more fall into their hands, sir."

Fenton shook his head. "I don't like people taking what's mine. What's more, they won't like it." He waved a hand towards the town hall's door and the wooden steps that led up to it.

"We'll catch them and hang 'em high, sir." Barristan promised him.

"Yes, I suppose you will. So what if they've a barrel? Let us strip them of their artillery."

"Artillery, sir?" Barristan asked, wary now.

"The brigand brigade have a cannon, a true siege gun. I've a mind to tear it from its frame and melt it down for parts, to let them know how I feel about their presence on my land."

Barristan did not pass comment. Stuart's gaze fell towards his boots as he folded his arms.

"You are dismissed, Barristan. My thanks, safeguarding the supplies was the right choice. Ensure Reynauld and his companions receive a few coins more, they've surely earnt it."

"Yes sir." Barristan said.

Stuart Fenton's chin remained pointed at the ground, his eyes sliding back up to Barristan's unmoving form. "You are dismissed, Barristan." He spoke emphatically.

Barristan did nothing at first, before he threw a half-hearted salute and wandered back towards the town square as a dirge began to resonate from there.  
Their latest recruit was playing up.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Been moving house, hence the sluggish speed - constructive criticism is always appreciated, encouragement or expression of enjoyment doubly so!  
Also, if people would like... whilst I'm in the process of getting established, you guys can let me know which hero you'd appreciate being introduced next chapter, there's a fair few more to go through.


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